


Where I Found Home

by Pookaseraph



Series: Dimension Home [2]
Category: Marvel, Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Dimension Z, Father-Son Relationship, Fix-It, Found Family, Gen, M/M, Mentions of past noncon, Romance, Zola is a monster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-07
Updated: 2013-07-07
Packaged: 2017-12-18 00:14:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 50,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/873525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pookaseraph/pseuds/Pookaseraph
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With Steve finally awake after his trails in Dimension Z, he and Ian are finally ready to settle into their life, and their future. That doesn't stop Ian from struggling with all of the things his father has lost because of him: the Avengers, his work with S.H.I.E.L.D., and his fiancee.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I Found Home

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to read 'Family Old and New' to follow this, but I really recommend you do. It sets up a lot of the character interaction that might seem taken for granted if you read this fic on its own.
> 
> As a quick note, this is NOT canon compliant after Captain America (vol. 6) #8, and is unlikely to be barring major surprises. There are a few tweaks that make this less compatible with Family Old and New that I may or may not go back and correct. If there is an inconsistency, feel free to point it out, but it's likely I know. Despite what this might look like, very little of the story was directly informed by Captain America #8, despite what it might seem like.
> 
> Warnings wise: there is not-graphic mentions of past rape and past reproductive coercion.

~1~

In all of the years that Steve had spent in Dimension Z, the _dozen_ years of his life spent there, Steve had never allowed himself to hope that he would arrive back home so close to when he had left. Part of him had imagined it was possible, but it was not a possibility he dwelled on. The pain when it was not the case would have been unbearable.

And yet, here he was; barely six weeks time had passed for the Avengers, and most of that had been spent with Steve sick in a coma. His son was there - Ian, standing at Tony's side; nothing else mattered beyond that. His son was safe. That Tony stood there next to him, not even looking a day older, that Sharon and Sam were only a few feet from them, also not having aged a day, helped him accept the reality that he had not lost his whole life again.

Steve's mind was overwhelmed, not just by the memories of two lifetimes jammed into one body, but by the fact that he was _home_ , that his son was here, that he was safe, that things, somehow, seemed to have worked out for the best. His mind was still tangled, likely would be for a very long time, maybe even the rest of his life, but things here, right in this moment, weren't. A month, he'd been out of it for a month... and there was Don, looking little the worse for wear. 

"Long time, no see," Steve said.

Tony looked down, tiny smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, Sharon's mouth just grew into a thinner line. He couldn't even remember if that was good or bad. How long had it even been... Steve could barely remember how they'd left it. 'We'll talk tonight', maybe.

"Satisfied?" Don asked, giving Ian a little smile that clearly said that he needed to head out.

"No." But Ian sighed, and then walked back to Steve's bedside to give him a peck on the forehead. "But this is the part where you're throwing us out to do secret doctor things, right?"

"Yup." Don gave him little pat on the shoulder. "You can come back in when I'm finished, but we have a lot of tests to do. Go distract yourself."

"Come on." Tony was the one who finally waved a hand to beckon Ian over, and he went. "My high score in Fruit Ninja isn't going to beat itself."

The four of them headed out, and Steve stared off at their retreating backs for a moment before Don got to work on him. "Did... _Tony_?" Steve was still trying to wrap his head around it. Tony did well enough mentoring younger heroes, it was something he actually took a little joy in - especially the ones who fancied themselves another Iron Man - but to have Tony actually...

"What?" Don asked, carefully starting to unwrap the bandages around his chest. "You expected your girlfriend to be the one who reluctantly adopted your surprise kid?"

Steve winced. Well, when he put it that way... "I guess not." That did answer another question, one that Ian hadn't fully answered. Don, at least, and probably the others, thought that Ian was his biological son. That suited him fine.

He sat through x-rays, through scans, through exams, pokes and prods. He was tested and re-tested, quizzed and then very carefully was allowed to stand and stretch his legs. He knew he shouldn't have been able to be up, that he probably shouldn't have been able to even survive what he'd been through, but he was up, and under Don's watchful eye he stretched and was even allowed to shower. His ribs were still tender - 'healing', Don had said - and although his chest still ached, there was nothing but scarred, Zola-less skin underneath the bandages. The absence of the extra mind there, pressing in the back of his skull, was welcome.

"The infection?" Steve asked, coming back out from the bathroom in carefully tied hospital pants.

"You can thank Doctor Banner for that." Don helped him lay back down on clean sheets, and Steve stared down at his feet for a moment, wiggling the toes just to feel them move. "He was able to isolate the infiltration and develop a counter-agent. I'm surprised your body wasn't able to fight it off."

"Only immune to Earth diseases, I guess," Steve answered. "The first week after I drank some tainted water isn't an experience I want to relive, either. How's Ian settling?"

"A few hours out of a coma and you're worried about your son. Why am I not surprised?" Don started to work his way through some reflex testing, which Steve mostly tuned out. "He's tall for his age, a bit underweight, and his nutrition could have been a bit better. I've put him on vitamin supplements and had Jarvis and Tony look for ways to get him more fiber and calcium into his diet. It's been hard to get a real cognitive assessment, since he hasn't had any real formal education, but Tony hired him a tutor and he's taking to it fairly well."

Steve nodded, took it all in. He shouldn't have been surprised, but a small part of him was. Tony had hired a tutor, Tony had obviously become the person Ian had latched onto in Steve's absence, and Tony seemed to have taken to him well enough in return.

"Sam suggested a counselor, someone who dealt with children coming from war-torn regions, child soldiers, really. Ian goes two or three times a week with Sam, Tony, or both of them." Don urged Steve to push and pull on his arms for a few moments before he continued. "You're not going out into the field until you've done similar."

He didn't protest. It reminded him of his time back when he'd first arrived in the future. He probably shouldn't have been out in the field so soon after that. "Alright."

"Thor-- he was there for a six hour funeral for almost your entire clan. Tony's told me Ian wakes up almost every night, screaming. And his mother--" Don trailed off, clearly unsure how to broach the subject.

Steve bowed his head, not trusting himself to look Don in the eyes right at that moment. "He only found out about his mother recently," Steve said. He knew it didn't make it better. "I wanted... to protect him from that for as long as possible. He's just a boy."

"Thor would no doubt say he's a young man on the cusp of adulthood, and needed to know." Don sighed, his shoulders slumped and he didn't say anything else until Steve met his eyes. "I know you've done what you could, but..."

"I understand. Believe me, Don. I've spent _years_ wishing I could give him more than I have."

It went, slowly, and finally Don pronounced himself finished - hours later - and as much as he wanted to avoid it, he _knew_ Sharon would be waiting, just like he knew that Tony would somehow keep Ian distracted. He didn't want to have that conversation, but he asked, and Don let Sharon in, and Steve didn't hide from it, just straightened his back and waited.

Sharon entered, slowly, and alone, arms crossed over her chest as she looked at him. Sharon broke first, her shoulders sagged. "I'm so glad you're alright."

"Don expects a full recovery."

"That mission--" Sharon started.

"Don't." He couldn't let Sharon do that to herself. "It's been years for me, Sharon, over a decade. It was bad intel, it happens. I knew you'd beat yourself up for it. I knew you wouldn't let yourself forgive, but it's alright. Here, now, on the other side of it-- it's one of the best things that has ever happened to me." The future, finding his place with the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D., meeting everyone he had, had always been the great bright spot of his lost life in the past. Now, Dimension Z was what had given him Ian, his son. "Please don't."

Sharon nodded. It hadn't gone in, Steve could see as much, but maybe in a few weeks, a few months, it would. "I keep thinking these awful things. If I hadn't sent you on that mission--" She glanced over her shoulder, and Steve could feel the weight of it on her. "It's selfish."

"It's human," Steve assured her.

"He--" She glanced over her shoulder again, like saying something would summon him. "He's a good kid, from what I've seen."

"Ian?" He didn't need to clarify, but part of it was just so _new_. Ian and the Avengers and Sharon all in one place, all squeezed together and occupying the same parts of his life. "He's... _incredible_ , Sharon. He came up in this awful world, these awful circumstances, every disadvantage..." Just like Steve had, really, and that had always been something that Steve cherished.

He saw, immediately, that what he was saying was obviously hurting Sharon. Six weeks, it had only been six weeks, Steve had to remind himself of that. For her it hadn't been a decade. For her they were talking about getting married and starting a life together, and here was Steve... a lifetime older.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no..." Sharon shook her head, trying to assure him, or maybe herself. "He's your... he's your son. I think part of me was waiting for you to say..."

There was no way. Steve could never disavow Ian, even now that his son knew his true parentage, especially not now. He had no delusions about how most of the Avengers would take Ian's parentage either. Wanda, Quicksilver, the Runaways, and so many others had a stigma just from their birth; Ian would have suffered similarly if people knew Zola was his biological father. "He's my son. I've raised him since the day he was born, Sharon." Ian had literally taken his first breath in Steve's arms.

"And his mother?"

Steve didn't answer. How could he? He barely knew what to say to Ian about her.

"You loved her?"

He'd never met Ian's mother, never touched her, never even laid eyes on her. Zola had cast away her body as no longer necessary after she had _gestated_ , Ian, but Steve did have Zola's memories. He remembered a time when Zola had legitimately loved Mary, and when Mary had loved him in return. "Yes. I-- part of me still loves her. I'm sorry."

Sharon didn't flee, so much as nod, and orchestrate a strategic retreat. Steve might have been stranded in a desolate waste for years without another human besides his son, but even he knew he had screwed that one up.

*

Ian had spent enough time with Tony to recognize when he was trying to distract him. It was mostly working, though, the two of them huddled over the in the kitchen, Ian playing fruit ninja and Tony feeding him ants on a log - which weren't insects, despite the name. Jarvis was working on dinner, or lunch; a few other Avengers were milling around, not trying to take up his attention but being there in a weird, Avengers way that Ian was still getting used to. "Do you think my armor is good with the dark blue color? I want it to be like Dad's old costume."

"First off, it's not 'your armor' unless your father says it can be your armor," Tony answered. "Second... second is something I'm sure Jan would have more to say about. It's stylish."

"Says the man who wears designer suits half the time and grubby t-shirts the other half."

"Dad!" Ian spun around to see his dad, leaning carefully against one of the walls, mostly holding up his own weight. "What are you doing up? Did Doctor Blake let you go? Shouldn't you be laying down? Sit. Sit sit sit. You are such a bonehead sometimes." Ian scrambled off his stool and helped his dad over to the breakfast bar, giving him the hand up he needed to lean there against the counter.

"Doctor Blake did let me go. Said I was mostly patched up, just not allowed out in the field for another few days." Dad sighed, and then reached out to grab Ian around the shoulder and kiss his forehead. "Jarvis." Dad gave him a nod, and Jarvis responded with a bright smile. "... Everyone."

Dad turned, and smiled at the group at large, which seemed to let people come over and give Dad tentative hugs. Ian couldn't help the flash of annoyance, but he squished it down. This was Dad's home first. It was a crush of all of the people who knew Dad, all of the Avengers he'd slowly gotten to know over the last few weeks, all of them checking, making their own judgement of Dad, and after what felt like forever, it seemed that he passed. Tony just sat, though, waiting, and when Ian gave a sigh, that earned him a pat on the shoulder.

"Sucks to share, doesn't it?" Tony said, voice soft.

"Yeah..." Ian was happy - he _was_ \- his dad was better, up walking, looked more together than he had in years, but it still hurt to know how easily Dad could slide back into all of this and Ian was lost. He gave his omelet a cranky poke with his fork.

"I see your teenage years will be fun." Tony sunk down onto his elbows next to Ian, and then snaked away a bite of his food - something that Ian had only just gotten used to. "Give it a bit, we're all missing your dad." Tony then gave Ian's nose a playful pinch, and straightened up.

The crowd had finally parted and Ian got to see Dad again, watched him look over and ruffle Ian's hair. "Settling in?"

"A little," Ian said. "It's different."

"Hey," Tony said, standing. "Jarvis can whip you up anything if you need but otherwise we're gonna... go... do a thing, elsewhere."

Dad laughed. "Thank you, Tony." A few moments later, Tony and Dad hugged, before they pulled away and Tony sighed. "I'll be down in the garage if you need anything."

"I have Aimee," Ian assured him.

And then, suddenly, they were alone - with Jarvis - who had some sort of ability to just seem to disappear. It wasn't that he was unimportant, he was super important, but it was just easy to feel that Jarvis wasn't going to steal Dad's attention the same way. "Don wants me to eat," Dad said. "Protein, fiber, fat, carbs, everything. So..."

"An omelet, perhaps?"

"That would be great, Jarvis." Steve finally turned back to Ian, and really looked at him, hands-on-his-cheeks looking at him. "Welcome home, son."

Ian screwed his eyes shut, and took a deep breath. "Everyone's... been really nice."

Dad knew. Ian could see that the second he looked back up. Dad put his fingers against Ian's temples and rubbed there, looking at him in that way he always did when he wanted to say 'everything will be alright'. The way Dad still said 'look away' when he intended to kill someone outside of the heat of battle. The way he knew how to protect Ian all at once. "Do you feel safe?"

Ian could have just said 'yes', but Dad would know that Ian was just saying that to make him feel better, so he thought about it, really thought about it. "Almost."

"Getting there. Who's Aimee?" Dad asked, slightly smirking.

Ian knew _that_ look, Dad always had it whenever the younger Phrox were doing their stupid mating things, that smirking, happy look in the middle of all the bad. "Aimee is my tablet." Ian pulled it over, and unlocked it, and then pushed the 'Aimee' button. "Tony made her computer brain out of old other computer brains, and she answers my questions so I don't get lost."

"Ah."

"She's nice though..." Softly, he looked over to where Dad was looking at the omelet that had appeared in front of him and Jarvis was nowhere to be found. "What happened with... with Sharon?"

"I told her you were mine," he said, matter of fact. "I said I had loved your mother, and still did. She was upset..."

Ian knew, even though he had always hoped that Dad would say those words to all the Avengers, and claim Ian as his son, that didn't mean he wanted Dad to just... _give up_. "But you love Sharon." Ian looked up at Dad. "You painted her on the wall and had that bullet and you thought about her all the time when I was a baby... and all of that stuff with mom, that was because of Zola, not because of you. You didn't hurt mom."

"Ian."

"You should fight. You love her, right? She's still your mate and I don't want you to be unhappy and I can..."

"Ian!" Ian hushed. "Sharon... we need time."

"Time heals all wounds," Ian said. It wasn't something Steve said, so he must have heard it from someone else. "I... I just don't want you to be sad." His father had given up so much for him, Ian didn't want to add happiness and a mate to the list of things that Ian had cost his father.

"As long as you're safe, I could never be sad." Dad reached out and ruffled his hair, smiling at it, and then ruffling it again. "If I had to choose one person in the entire world, it would always be you."

Tears started to well in his eyes, and he leaned in to hug Dad around the neck, burying his face there and squeezing tight. "What if it's just the Zola?"

Dad didn't even pause. "Everything I feel for you, everything, has always been because of what you mean to me. You are the best part of my life in Dimension Z. Without you, I wouldn't have had anything to fight for out there. I would have never made it home. I would have died out there somewhere without you."

"And you'd never be my dad..." Ian whispered.

"That's why it's not worth thinking about." Dad pulled him closer, fingers gripping the back of Ian's head. "There is so much different here, don't get hung up on the things that will always be the same: you are my son, I love you, and I would do anything to protect you."

Safe, warm, home, food, Avengers... Ian could, maybe, start to get used to all of that. "I love you, too."

After a long squeeze, Dad let him go, and turned to his omelet.

"Does that mean I can keep the discus?"

"No."

"Daaaad."

"Did Tony teach you that?"

"Clint."

"He's fired."

"Tony made me battle armor."

"He's fired, too."

"No, he's not," Ian said, very certain of that one. "He made me Aimee, and armor, and he's not a bad pillow."

"You spent the night with him?"

Ian nodded, going back to his own omelet while Dad turned to his. "I'm not supposed to crawl into bed with strange men. Tony says."

"Kids your age usually have their own room, you know." Dad prodded his food. "You had your own room back in the Cavern."

"At night... all I see is Zola and the Captains killing everyone." Ian looked down at his hands; they were always too small, always not enough. He had tried so hard to protect his family, and he hadn't won at all. Dad wouldn't have stopped fighting... even knocked out, even slung over his sister's shoulder, Dad wouldn't have stopped. "You fought Zola for years. I couldn't even do it for a few hours."

"It's not the same. Do you think I never lost?" Dad looked at him, the same way they did across the fire back home in the Cavern, when he talked about the Avengers, about the War, about home and with an ache to share all of that with Ian. "You got back up, you got me home, you saved my life."

"Zola's still out there." Ian knew that, even though he'd smashed his father's stupid face in. "It's not the end."

"And we'll face that. You, me, the Avengers, all together. I know I taught you so much about being on your own, about going on without me... but I'm going to teach you what it's like to be an Avenger."

Ian grinned, very, very wide. "So I can keep the photon shield?"

"Someone is a very bad influence on you."

But Dad was happy. Maybe it didn't quite squish all of the bad things, but Dad was awake, he was happy, and they were here together. Ian thought, maybe, that Dad was right that they could take on the world.

*

Tony was more than glad to have his run as an impromptu babysitter brought to an end. Ian was a great kid, but he was behind on almost everything he was supposed to be working on because of how much _time_ it took. He didn't begrudge Ian the time, but the late night nightmares, the frequently counseling, the constant need for human contact that A.I.M.E.E. couldn't assuage, it all added up, and Tony was looking forward to hours and hours of uninterrupted time to let his mind go over all of his projects and actually make some progress.

He lasted about forty-five minutes before he asked A.I.M.E.E. to call up details of Ian's location and found him down in one of the training rooms with Steve, working through something that looked roughly like Tai Chi. He left that up as he continued to work on his own projects. He made some amazing progress over the next four hours, before he was finally interrupted by Steve knocking gently on the door and then letting himself in, bearing food.

Tony couldn't help it; he craned his neck to look around Steve, only to find Ian wasn't there at all.

"He's upstairs with Natasha," Steve answered the unspoken question. "Apparently she's teaching him _knife throwing_."

"In my defense, he was already pretty good at it before she started."

Steve didn't seem angry, though, he just handed over a plate of steaming, delicious looking, pasta, and a cup of coffee... and a cookie. "What did I do?"

"You personally looked after Ian for a _month_ , Tony; Don, Natasha, Clint... a few others, they all were very clear on that. Am I not allowed to be grateful?" Steve settled against the desk Tony was working at and Tony took a bite of the pasta. "And I suppose I'm buttering you up for a favor."

"Please," Tony said between bites. "I'm easy. What do you need?"

"I know Ian's been staying with you." Tony didn't bother to confirm, just waited out the request. "I think we should stay in the Tower for now. My-- Our--" Steve pinched the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath. "The apartment only has one bedroom; Ian's comfortable here; I'm going to need a lot more medical tests."

"Sure," Tony answered. "Jarvis had the Cages' old suite prepped a few weeks ago. Ian's got twenty-four hour access to my room so he can pick up his stuff whenever. He's a fan of my fireplace so I had Jarvis order a flueless fireplace for insta--" He trailed off at the look on Steve's face, he was smiling. "What?"

"Thank you." Steve continued to relax against the desk before Tony realized he wasn't _relaxing_ , so much as using the damn thing to hold himself up. "And what stuff?"

"Oh, you know... clothes, shoes, a few books, dvds, movie posters... plushies of a character from that ridiculous show he likes-- Finn maybe? Also, your son is a brony, and in love with Natalie Portman." Tony pushed away from his desk and turned back to Steve. "I think that shows he has excellent taste."

Steve smiled, and then shook his head. "How do you suddenly know more about him than me?"

"Because I've been his Earth ambassador for a month while you were in a coma. But, seriously, take whatever space you need." He picked up a tablet and handed that over, too. "Here. Credentials for the tutor I hired, and the counselor Sam picked out. He's a bit of a luddite when it comes to his science education, but I hopefully have talked him around on that. I think, even if you don't want him going to school with them, that he'd be a good fit with the Future Foundation."

"You pick out a college for him, too?" Steve asked, no real bite in his words, but with that _tone_ , the one when Tony was overreaching, which was a thing he did, not infrequently.

"Shit. I just--" Tony sighed. "Banner can go on about applied science fiction all he wants, but we were working under the assumption that you might--" Tony felt himself deflate, and he looked over at Steve, feeling every hour of lost sleep on his body. "We-- I-- I wanted to make sure he didn't have anything to worry about." He'd been so damn worried that Steve would die that he'd done everything in his power to make sure that all the details, everything else, were all set in a row. He owed Steve that much, and more.

"Thank you, really." Steve took the tablet though, running a gentle thumb over it, thoughtful. "I'll take this from here, though. The science-- I think that'll be a while."

Tony shrugged. "I tried to hash it out with him a day or two ago." Ian was still having some serious problems dealing with Zola being his biological father, that much was obvious, and Tony had tried his best, but comforting people about their lack of genetic destiny wasn't something Tony found easy.

"It's just--" Steve didn't finish. He was just the worst damn liar and evader ever about some things.

"I know." Tony tried.

"You know?" Steve asked.

"Blood type," Tony said. "I wasn't really looking for it. The Chairperson of the Avengers having blood types for medical emergencies has been SOP since day one. I didn't ask, but he was obviously having trouble with it... and he told me."

"He told you," Steve said, and then he sighed, relieved. "Did he tell--?"

"Anyone else? No, I don't think so, not even Sam. He's smart, and he got enough of the pulse of the room to figure out that some people are a bit more _involved_ with Zola."

"And you're ok with that?" Steve asked, watching Tony, eyes not leaving his.

He shrugged. "I try to be philosophical about it. For every Sasha Hammer and Zeke Stane, there's got to be an Ian Rogers." Most of his own personal enemies were one large, inbred dynasty. Someday, when he was in his sixties, some Hammer-Stane would probably come gunning for him; that was simply the nature of the beast, but he didn't think it meant that kid would be destined for evil. "You've raised him right. That's... I know you and Reed don't play chess on a semi-regular basis, but one of his kids, Bentley, he's an exact genetic copy of the Wizard..."

"Hence wanting to have him over with the Future Foundation."

"Those kids are weird as hell, but the multicultural shit would probably be good for him." They had like... mermen, and moloids, and a Princess. Ian would fit right in. As much as Steve was shitty at evasions, Tony finally realized what he _was_ evading. "How are _you_ , Steve? Ian's had a month to adjust, you're on hour-- what, five?"

He'd obviously hit a mark; Steve looked down, and then away. "Every day... every day there it was the same struggle, keep Ian safe, try to get us home. I would have died for that. I _killed_ for that. Now I'm-- now I need to schedule him play dates."

Tony leaned in, hands on Steve's shoulders, and Steve leaned into him, head resting against Tony's shoulder. "You did what you had to."

"I should be _better_ than that," Steve bit out.

The shoulders clearly weren't cutting it, and Tony put a hand on the back of Steve's neck, holding him in place even though the man obviously wanted to pull away. "You are. You're the best of us, always have been."

He knew that would be a cold comfort to Steve. Part of what made him _Steve_ was a complete unwillingness to compromise on some things, an inability to even consider 'necessary evil', and yet... it was obvious he’d pushed himself, and far, in order to get Ian home..

Rather than pull away, Steve leaned into him, and it took Tony a moment to realize that Steve, again, was leaning on him for physical support, not the emotional. With a huff, Tony helped sit him back onto a seat.

"You seem a bit... beat."

Steve laughed, and then scrubbed his hands down his face, over the shortened beard there.

"Look... you tell me what you need, I'll make it happen." It was Tony's turn to lean back on his own console, and look down at his friend, who really did look like he'd been through hell and back.

"I--" Steve took a deep breath, and then looked over at Tony, and the sheer _weight_ in those eyes was a little terrifying. Steve was pretty damn old, just turned ninety if you were counting years since he was born, but that was the first time Tony had really felt he was his age. "I'm not sure I can be Captain America right now."

The words hit him like a ton of bricks, and he barely stifled the gasp that came with them. "We-- uh-- talking Nomad here, or Steve Rogers?" Tony asked, trying to clarify even as his mind scrambled and told him to _stop Steve this instant_.

"Steve Rogers," he answered. "Don doesn't want me out in the field right now, and I can't blame him. I have two entire lifetimes jammed in my head right now, Zola... his _voice_ isn't there any longer, but his memories, his life, they're all in there, jumbled around with the Lower East Side. Beyond that, Ian deserves a life, every advantage I can give him, school, stability."

"We could get you a telepath," Tony said. "Mindwalker," he corrected a moment later. "Clear out the Zola memories..."

Steve was shaking his head, for reasons that Tony couldn't even begin to fathom. "That's... I _hate_ Zola for what he did, but... he is Ian's father, and every memory I have of his mother is... is _his_ , not my own. I don't know if Ian will ever want to know his father, but I'll be damned if I'm going to take the chance to know his mother away."

"You stupid, noble, asshole," Tony said, but he smiled, and put a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Well, that's one question answered." Steve had never known Ian's mother, not literally and not figuratively. "But go ahead, take some time, hang out, play ball with your kid, win your girlfriend back."

Steve winced.

"That bad?"

Steve considered it for a few moments, and then nodded. "Yeah."

Tony took another forkful of pasta, not quite sure what to say. "You'll figure it out, and you and Ian are welcome to stay until you do."

He wouldn't throw either of them out for anything, and if Steve's gratified expression was anything to go by, that was more than needed. Steve left him to his work after that, and Tony continued to have another two hours of uninterrupted productivity, when Ian came in and then pulled up a chair, scooting in close enough to see what Tony was doing, but not close enough to be a bother - Tony had taught him well.

"Sup, kiddo?" Tony asked as he set down the soldering he was working on.

"Wanna watch something?" Ian held up his StarkTablet, eyes wide.

"Don't wanna grab your dad?" Tony asked, a little confused why he was even being asked. The kid's dad was up and around, he didn't need to cling to Tony anymore.

"Well--" Ian carefully hugged the Tablet to his chest and then frowned. "It's _Star Trek_ ," he said, like that explained everything, which, Tony supposed it did, since he'd taken it on himself to expose Ian to pretty much everything with the word 'star' in the title with the intention of winning Ian over before he got too into the Tolkien stuff that Steve loved. If his friend's son was going to be a nerd, he was going to be a well-rounded nerd.

"Alright, alright." Tony smiled and shoved away the project he was working on. "We're still on season one of Next Gen, right?"

Ian nodded in the affirmative before grabbing Tony's wrist and dragging him off to the elevator. "I still don't like the new captain, Kirk's better."

All he needed was for Ian to learn how to type and he would have the kid in his first Star Trek purist flame war. He was probably the worst uncle ever.

~2~

Steve and Ian set up in the old Cage suite; the sheets were clean, the bathrooms neatly stocked with clean towels and fresh toiletries, and Ian brought down a box full of clothes and a few stuffed animals that would be the beginning of his things. Tony had outfitted Ian extensively, although Steve was hardly surprised, and the cornerstone of the new room appeared to be a thin, well-crafted armor in deep blue colors, set on a mannequin.

He didn't have much by way of personal effects in the Tower; the room he'd kept was usually for when he was on call, not a place he truly made his home, so beyond a few changes of clothing he had little to move. He was surprised, however, to find a new copy of The Hobbit, with large print and several pictures, sitting on his bedside table.

Ian spent an hour listening to Steve read to him about Bilbo Baggins, the very unusual hobbit, before he started to doze off on Steve's shoulder; after tucking him in, Steve finally headed to bed himself.

Steve's sleep was troubled, filled with images of dead Phrox and Ian's dead sister, and Ian's mother crying to be allowed to leave... He woke far too early, sweating and heart racing. For the first time in over a decade, Steve couldn't blame those dreams on Zola; they were all his own mind's making. A look in Ian's room, after he had changed into running clothes, showed tangled sheets and no Ian.

That wasn't entirely unusual - Ian wandered around the Phrox Cavern often enough - but that didn't stop the little bit of terror that his son was missing in unfamiliar territory. Still, it was the Tower, hardly dangerous, and he tried not to worry about the fact that his son had wandered off sometime in the night.

Ian was also nowhere to be found when Steve headed down to the communal kitchen. Jarvis was working on breakfast for the Avengers who had stayed the night. "Do you know where Ian is?"

"I would suggest inquiring with Aimee," Jarvis answered. "She is his keeper as far as Mr. Stark is concerned."

Aimee, brought up on one of the computer panels, directed him to Tony's garage, where Ian was next to Tony, StarkTablet propped up on the bench while Tony worked and Ian stared at... Steve checked over Ian's shoulder. They were watching a movie. It was far more _colorful_ than Steve would have expected, complete with some red-headed woman dancing around through the park in some sort of movie that seemed reminiscent of... Mary Poppins, perhaps.

"What...?"

Ian prodded the screen, forcing the movie to pause, and then looked over his shoulder at Steve. "Giselle is waiting for Prince Edward to take her back to Andalasia so they can get married and have a true love's kiss."

Steve didn't really have any idea what to do with that. Tony shrugged. "It's a fish out of water Disney movie comedy about New York City. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"You mind if I... go check in with S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Steve hooked a thumb over his shoulder. He didn't usually ask, but since Tony seemed to have at least set up his son to be entertained by a movie while Tony did some work, Steve figured the least he could do was ask.

"I'm good," Ian assured him, and then promptly turned back around and prodded the movie to go again. Tony just gave him a thumbs up before he went back to whatever computer simulation or problem he was working on now.

Twelve years in another dimension, years spent with memories that weren't his own crawling in his own mind, ages since he'd last seen another human being, and the weirdest thing in his life was Tony and his son, a pair of similarly coiffed puffs of dark brown hair, leaning over their respective glowing tablets, engrossed. He took one of the quinjets, practically let itself fly on autopilot, broadcast his presence and generally... tried not to think too hard.

S.H.I.E.L.D. might have been an over-optimistic undertaking. Steve spent almost two hours getting checked over by doctors, and although he avoided a complete psychological evaluation he did end up at some sort of makeshift debrief/counseling session that included Maria Hill and one of the S.H.I.E.L.D. shrinks. He then ran through an abridged battery of physical tests, which he passed with his usual flying colors, before finally taking himself to the mess for lunch so he could just... he needed a vacation.

He sat his way through thousands of very brief well-wishes, handshakes, and pats on the back, before he was finally interrupted by one very firm, but polite, hand on the shoulder; Sam, like some sort of angel, really, putting a hand on his elbow and dragging him off. "I'm just gonna say, Steve, you should be _anywhere_ else."

They ended up near Sam's apartment, at one of those bars where the regulars all knew that 'Steve' and 'Sam' were actually 'Cap' and 'Falcon' but politely didn't harass them, Steve staring down a beer and Sam doing the same while they didn't say much - not right away, anyway. "How you holding up? Sorry I bailed on you a bit yesterday, just... Sharon's been having a time of it since you disappeared on the mission, and... let's just say your return wasn't the hugs-and-kisses reunion that might have been expected."

"I understand." It was a mess, Steve could see that now, especially now that the weirdness of Z was giving way to the different problems of Earth. "I'm... holding up."

Sam made a face like he didn't believe Steve, eyebrow quirked a little bit, but he didn't comment for a long moment. Finally, he took a swig of beer and looked Steve square in the eyes. "I think I've heard one variation or another on most of Ian's formative years, but there's a hole a mile wide that he talks around. Mike's noticed."

"Mike?" He frowned.

"The counselor I picked out for Ian."

Right, Mike. Steve had looked over his credentials that Tony had supplied but he hadn't let it sink in yet. "Thank you for going with him," Steve said. "He... he needed need that."

Sam shrugged. "Stark's been going as well, but he's a son of a bitch and has Ian calling me Uncle Sam."

Steve couldn't help the little chuckle. Tony probably thought it was hilarious. Ian probably still didn't have a clue why it was funny.

The chuckles died down between them, and he saw Sam's face sober and his mouth draw into a thin line. "Mom," Sam prompted.

Steve looked down at his hands. "Mary."

Sam waited him out. Steve had more patience, or at least years ago he had, but there was a certain amount of patience that he had lost and had been worn out of him. He broke.

"She-- died." That seemed the most he could give for a moment. Mary had died before Steve had even gotten to Z. Ian had been a free-floating prenatal child in a jar, no mother required in Zola's book. That was one thing he never wanted to tell Ian. "She-- We-- made it to a plane." 'We' had been Steve and Ian, but he couldn't tell Sam that. "Crashed-- I-- Ian took his first breath in my arms and... after that I was all he had."

He hated that he had never known her as a person, that they had never met, that he hadn't been the one to see her, years ago, a pretty girl with honey-colored hair in that tiny Swiss village; she'd been pretty enough to catch Zola's eye, smart enough to catch his mind, and for a time, the two of them had legitimately cared for each other. To Zola, however, she was merely the most perfect genetic specimen for _breeding_ , love and affection becoming unnecessary in the wake of the drive for genetically perfect progeny.

"She was-- smart," Steve offered, finally. "Opinionated. She wasn't the same sort of tough as--" he groped around for a comparison. "Carol or Jessica--"

When he glanced over at Sam, his friend had an arched eyebrow, head cocked, expectant.

"Not like Sharon," Steve said, fulfilling the question that Sam was obviously thinking. "She had this... quiet strength, through everything, through--" Steve closed his eyes, trying not to remember the joy that Zola had taken in _forcing_ her, the perverse glee when she started to grow with child. He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to scour the images behind his eyes not not succeeding. "I always saw that in Ian, his strength and his will to keep going, to meet every challenge without fear."

Even before they had found a home among the Phrox, Ian had never complained, simply looked forward and kept going. That, Steve could content himself, was the strength of his mother, something that Zola never did manage to eradicate from her, in spite of his best efforts. He didn't come to remember that until later in Ian's life, but as much as Zola and Steve had descended into a war between fathers, there was always Ian's mother, somewhere mixed between them.

"If you need to talk about her..."

Steve shook his head, anything beyond what he said would have been an outright lie. He loved Mary, always would; he would always hate Zola for what he did to her, and what he forced on her; he would always love her son. It was a part of him, but anything more than that would be a fabrication or an outright lie. "It... it's still fresh," Steve admitted. "Zola, and his memories, were inside my head for a decade. When I tried to sleep at night he was there, taunting me. Mary was-- what he did to her-- it was a favorite of his."

Zola had made great sport of using his own past fondness for Mary against Steve. He couldn't escape his own feelings for Mary, even though they were Zola's.

"I'm sorry, Sam. I can't right now."

"Alright, but... the door's open. You can't blame yourself for what a fucked up monster did." Sam gave his shoulder a squeeze. "Now drink your damn beer."

Steve took a long sip. Sam was right, he knew that, but it didn't make the memories any easier. "Thanks. I-- I think you know that's not easy for me. I was worried you'd be mad at me."

"Mad? What the hell for?"

"Sharon. Me and Sharon. Ian." Steve felt awful at _himself_ for it. That was the woman he'd loved for years, and... he'd hurt her so badly, didn't even know if he would be able to fix the things between them. The lie hurt her, but the truth would hurt even more. 

"God, Steve. Sharon and I are friends, and I feel for her, and you, pretty badly, but it's not like you nipped down to the store and knocked up some girl. You were MIA for thirteen years. You had good reason to think you were never getting home." Sam sighed, and then gave Steve a look like he was an idiot. "I'm trying to support her, but you're my friend, too."

He had to admit, he'd been worried about that. Sam was his best friend, and had been a partner for a damn long time. "I missed her," Steve said. "I missed her all the time, but..."

"Same way you miss Peggy?" Sam asked.

And Sam was, sadly, right. "I gave up hope so many times," Steve admitted. "Even when I thought I might get home, I never thought I could be in a position to just... pick up exactly where I left off. _Everyone_ is new to me," Steve said. "Even you."

Sam gave him a weak smile. "It's alright, Steve. We get it."

Steve hoped he did, he hoped they all did, because it was hard for _him_ to get it, and he was the one living it. "I should get home," he said. "Ian's been home all day and I--"

Sam smiled more brightly at that. "Tell him I said hi."

"Sure thing, Uncle Sam."

Steve paid for his beer, and ignored the under his breath mutter of 'Tony fucking Stark' from Sam.

*

Ian stared down at his tablet, touchpen in his hand as he carefully tried to math the equation right, tongue sticking out to the side. "So if you do it right... stuff blows up?"

Tony hummed in acknowledgement.

"That sounds more like what happens if you do it wrong," he said, frowning again. "Hydrocarbon plus heat plus air equals water and carbonoxis."

"Carbon dioxide. Di- goes on the front of words and means 'two'. One carbon, two oxygens."

Ian nodded down at the tablet again, still frowning. The door to the garage opened and Ian glanced up to see Dad coming in before he went back to the problem.

"I thought that was 'bi'," Ian answered, frowning.

"What the heck are you teaching him, Tony?" Dad asked.

"Chemistry," Ian answered, tongue still sticking out and trying to figure out how many hydrocarbons to add to the air.

"Tony!" Dad said, sounding surprisingly offended for Tony just teaching him more molecule math.

Tony tensed for a moment, before he chuckled. "Wow I sound like the worst uncle ever right now. No, see, literally, chemistry... molecules and hydrocarbon combustion and Greek versus Latin numerical prefixes. I think Ian would agree it's very hot."

Ian nodded. "Uh huh, combustion makes things blow up, and it's hot."

Dad rolled his eyes, but came over to where Ian was sitting and then planted a kiss right on the top of his head, looking over to where Ian was struggling his way through his chemistry math. "You're tutoring him?"

"Just on science because I'm behind," Ian answered, before scribbling out his answer and then adding up the molecules to check that it was right.

"A twelve year old doing chemistry is 'behind'?" Dad asked Tony, voice low enough to not really bug Ian, but Ian took a deep breath and tuned out anything beyond that. He was going to finish his work and then he got to watch a movie.

Dad and Tony headed over to the side, standing a bit close, and even though he was trying to focus, he ended up watching the two of them. Uncle Tony had a hand on Dad's elbow after a few seconds, but whatever they were talking about must have been alright because Dad was smiling, just a bit. He might have been able to focus on them, and hear bits of the conversation, but he didn't worry about it.

He finished up his homework, and Tony checked over it, and then Dad took him off to go to dinner, outside and away from the Tower.

"But Tony and I were gonna watch Star Wars..." Ian complained, even as he shrugged on his armor and then pulled a t-shirt over his head.

"Tony also has a lot of work to do," Dad answered. "So we're going to go out, eat, and..." Dad hung his head for a moment. "I want to see you out in my world."

"Can we have hot dogs? Can I teach you about hot dogs? You say 'one hot dog, chili and mustard!' and then they give you a hot dog with chili and mustard and you pay them..."

Dad took him by the shoulders and guided him out of their rooms and then down to the elevator - Ian punched the one button - and then they headed outside.

"Are we talking a car or walking?"

When they finally got outside, Dad stood for a moment, before putting a hand on Ian's shoulder and taking a deep breath. "I just want to see you here, Ian. Here, in New York..."

Ian finally realized what Dad must have been thinking. Tony didn't have the same problem, being all happy to see Ian here on Earth because he'd never known him in Dimension Z, but Dad had just woken back up yesterday, so Earth was all new to him again too. "I do like hot dogs." He even waved to Amir, the local hot dog man who was closest to the Tower.

Dad chuckled. "Maybe I need to be reminded of Earth. I spent the day at Shield, and with your Uncle Sam. He says hi."

Ian liked Uncle Sam, but it did bring the question... "And Sharon?" Ian had tried calling her 'Aunt Sharon' once, but that had made Sharon frown, so he hadn't done it a second time.

"Not today..." Dad brushed his fingers through Ian's hair, just a touch. "It's... I'm going to our apartment tomorrow and we'll... talk."

"Bring flowers." Ian continued to walk, Dad at his side. "Tony says."

"Does he now?"

Ian nodded. Tony said loads of things, usually when Ian was only paying half attention, but he learned all of them because he didn't know anything about Earth and Tony had been there for years and years. "Tony says they don't make hall marks cards for how he fucks up, though."

"Language." Dad was laughing, though, which was an odd sound to him. He knew Dad _could_ laugh, but he didn't usually, and it was _wonderful_ to hear. "And it's Hallmark, one word."

"People laugh a lot more, here." Ian had noticed that. Things were... well everyone said that they weren't perfect, but to Ian it was a lot closer than back home. There was food, and even though he always had his shield on his arm, he never felt in danger from monsters or other people the same way he had back home. It was so nice, and peaceful, even when villains attacked out of the blue.

"Yes." Dad put an arm around his shoulder and hugged Ian to his side. "There's a lot more to laugh about here."

There were still the things Ian cried about, and that scared him at night; Zola, the Captains of Zolandia, the dead Phrox that his blood father had killed, and his sister dying to get him and Dad home. But, there were more things to laugh about - Uncle Clint trying to tell him fake things were real and real were fake, Aunt Carol running him through obstacle courses, movies with Tony, soccer practice with Sam and Bobby... "I like it here. I-- I miss home, but I like it here, too."

Home was gone, though. It made it easier and harder to be here, knowing that he couldn't have gone home even if he wanted, but sometimes what he wanted was a jellied sky eel pastry from Sabul, and he could never, ever have that again. Ian screwed his eyes shut for a moment and wiped away the tears.

"It's ok to miss home," Dad said, as they came to a stop at a street light. "So... what are we going to eat?" Ian opened his mouth. "Not from a hot dog cart."

Ian closed his mouth again and sighed. "Pizza's my favorite... but Tony says I shouldn't eat it every day."

"When did you have pizza?"

"Thre-- yester-- morning." It wasn't his fault that Tony had leftover pizza in his refrigerator. "I like hamburgers? I like everything. We could have sushi?"

Dad looked down at him, surprised. "Sure."

So Ian wrapped his hand around Dad's wrist and started to tug him along towards the sushi restaurant where Tony had taken him for the first time two weeks ago. "I like it. Tony took me here when I said I liked sky squid and sky eel, and they also put eggs on sushi and little shrimps, like the sort the sky squids eat."

Dinner was... nice, he got to squish into a booth with Dad and drink tea and eat sushi, and it was the first time that he and Dad were just able to relax and do Dad-and-Ian stuff. He missed hunting, and just spending time with Dad.

"Are you feeling better?"

"More by the day." Dad took his own sip of tea and Ian caught him just looking at Ian with a goofy little look in his eyes. "I thought-- I always wanted us to be like this, but now--"

Ian glanced up, scared for a moment, wondering if Dad regretted it now that he'd actually brought Ian home with him. Tony had said that was ridiculous, that Dad loved him more than anything, but--

Dad squeezed his wrist. "I'm just surprised you're doing so well with modern New York."

"Oh--" Ian grinned up at him. "It's not so hard. There's street signs, and I can read some of them now, but I just remember all the buildings that are nearby so I can use them like stars, and you can see Avengers Tower from almost everywhere in the Middle Town. Besides I can always get a taxi and say 'Avengers Tower, Please' and I have an emergency credit card to pay with money if I don't have money paper."

"You have an emergency credit card?" Dad asked, smiling around his tea cup.

Ian thumbed open the little hideaway in his shield generator, and pushed it so the card would pop out, which he showed to Dad. It had Tony's name on it 'Anthony E. Stark', and also a second little card that explained that yes, this was Ian, and he was allowed to use the card. It was actually a video-and-voice message, but Dad didn't listen to it just then. "I just spend time with whoever the Avengers on call are, and Tony. And then Tony and Sam take me to Mike when it's counseling time." Ian sighed and poked at the lip of his tea cup.

"I'm going to start coming with you," Dad said. "I want to meet him, and... I should be there. Do you like him?"

Ian gave a little shrug. "He's nice. He makes me talk about stuff I don't like, and I have to journal about my life with Aimee and talk about all the things that happened growing up and about hunting and fighting and training and shooting. It's not too bad, but Mike says that kids who fight in wars feel guilty sometimes." Ian didn't feel guilty, not much. Dad had always made it clear when it was alright to shoot, when it was a good shoot, when they needed to do the things they had done, and Ian knew the rules, and memorized them by heart. He knew that Zola broke them, and that made him know those rules were right even more. "Tony says Avengers don't kill because we have jails to put bad guys in, but that it's different in war."

Dad nodded, and then was silent while the sushis arrived and Ian picked up the sticks and very carefully tried to use them the way Tony had showed him.

"The hardest part is... the Zola stuff," Ian said, glowering down at the eel roll before he picked it up and shoved it in his mouth, chewing slowly.

He didn't like to think about it. What Zola did to his mom was awful - that happened at home, with the Phrox, sometimes, but Dad had always been very firm in punishing; what Zola had done to the Phrox, sending them all to the Fields of Forever, was always going to be burned into Ian's eyes and his nose; that there was something evil in his blood, no matter what Dad or Tony said, was always going to worry him.

Ian swallowed, hard, around the sushi piece. "I hate him."

Dad put a hand on Ian's head, and he scratched his fingers against Ian's scalp, which made Ian lean into it. "I-- he gave me you," Dad said. "No matter how hard it was, no matter how terrible he could be, you are the best part of my life. Seeing you, here, eating _sushi_ , like a normal kid in a normal life, is everything I wanted for you."

"The sushi bit's probably a surprise," Ian said.

"Yes, yes it is. The rest is everything to me. Every time I told you about home... I wanted you here."

"I'm here." Ian picked up another sushi, a squid one, and he looked down at it. "But--"

"No buts."

" _Sharon_ ," Ian said. "I tried really hard to be nice, and she-- Sam said it's complicated, Sharon and babies are complicated. I-- I thought about telling her the truth, so that she wouldn't be mad at you. I don't want her to be mad at you."

"I don't want you to worry about that," Dad said. "It's my job, I'm your father and it's up to me to worry about those things. It's not your fault."

"But it _is_. If I wasn't around--"

"Shhhh." Dad put down his chopsticks, and looked at Ian. "If you weren't around-- I couldn't be happy with Sharon. If I lost you, my life would never be the same. I've lost a lot of people in my life, to old age, to war, but I don't want to imagine losing my son."

Ian looked down at his food, and then blinked back the tears at the corners of his eyes. "Okay." He wanted to believe it, and Dad... Dad didn't lie like that, no matter what Zola had tried to convince him with his lies. "I-- alright."

"I'd rather hear about what you like about Earth," Dad said, picking his chopsticks back up and returning to his food.

"Everything! Soccerfootball with Sam and Bobby, fighting with Carol, I like Star Trek, and wood burning art, and Thai peanut chicken, and the sky being blue instead of all purple-y, and the stars-- and getting to see hubbley pictures of far away skies, and math is alright, and Jarvis teaching me to make food, and--" So many things on Earth were _wonderful_. "It's really as good as you said."

It was Dad's turn to shut his eyes, blinking away tears. "I want to show you everything. I--" He chuckled. "I can't believe how much Tony showed you in a _month_."

"He says there's lots more, but we watch TV every night and..." Ian poked at one of the pieces of sushi. "One day, when I couldn't sleep, we watched the whole second season of Star Trek... he fell asleep in the middle somewhere, though."

"And tonight is Star Wars?" Dad asked.

"Number four, no more Amidala... she died." Ian had cried, and... he knew it was fake, but that didn't mean he had to like it.

Ian was slowly starting to believe that things might be alright, that they might get better, and for the first time, when he joined Tony in the movie room, Dad got to join him too. They watched like that, Dad on one side, Tony on the other, and he looped his both his arms through theirs and... it was pretty good. This was what he wanted for as long as he could have it.

*

Tony spent the rest of the night, and morning, catching up on even more work that he'd let go in the time he was spending with Ian, and yet, at the same time, found he kept missing having the kid there as well. It was stupid, but... he _liked_ the kid, Ian, that ridiculous little mini-Steve.

He and Steve had always been friends, since the early days, but he also knew that their friendship had been strained for some time. They spent time together, they knew each other better than almost anyone else, but last night had been the first time in months, maybe a year or two, that it had truly felt natural to spend time together. Tony had to put that on Ian, but it also meant that the affection he'd always felt for Steve wasn't covered by the anxiety that usually came with it. That part he could have lived without.

"Got a minute?" Steve asked, looking like he'd just gotten out of the shower, probably finished with an extended morning workout.

Tony pushed away from the desk he was working at and nodded.

"I'd hoped S.H.I.E.L.D. would have a few answers for me, but it wasn't much more than a psychological once over." Steve frowned for a moment, then crossed, and uncrossed his arms. "What do you know about it, the op to get me on that train, the people who have been coming after my son?"

Tony cocked his head towards the big screen and gave Steve a rundown of everything he, Sam, and Sharon had learned over the last month. "They've got at least a handful of moles inside S.H.I.E.L.D., again. Seriously, I had a solid compartmentalization plan back when I was runn-- never mind."

He spread his hands wide and Steve looked over the two or so dozen pictures on the scene. "Ian and I ran some ops, just getting a feel for the people who might be interested in him enough to follow us out on a few clothing expeditions. Small time crooks, a little AIM, a..."

"Who's this woman?" Steve pointed to the picture of Melody that was in the corner.

"Ex-girlfriend of mine, why?" Tony didn't include the grand recitation of his efforts to wine and dine her and bring her back to his room only to have Ian _epically_ cockblock him.

Steve tilted his head slightly, looking at her. "I don't know..." He pressed a finger against his temple. "Did I know her?"

"You... weren't around when I was dating her."

'Weren't around', as in 'dead', or as it turned out 'lost in time' but it had felt pretty dead to Tony at the time, he imagined.

Steve shook his head and looked at her again. "I don't know. She seems familiar."

"How?"

"Tony, I've been in a parallel dimension for twelve years, I barely remember the Avengers. What do _you_ remember about a specific day in 2000?"

He clenched his jaw, and looked up at the assembled photos again before sighing. "Well, it's a good bet I was drunk. Point taken, though. We may have to revisit her."

"How did you visit her in the first place?"

"Took her out for dinner, brought her back to my place..."

Steve rolled his eyes.

"Your son was under the impression that a black book was where you keep all your supervillains, and he was worried I was going to get murdered and left in a dumpster, so he was... up on the couch, waiting for me to get home, and thought she was attacking me when she pushed me against the door. We're lucky he didn't punch her."

That earned him a laugh from Steve, and then he shook his head.

"End result, I didn't get much of anything out of the evening. I'll put her back up on the list." He pulled up three mugshots. "These three tried to kidnap, and then stab, your son. As far as we can tell they were doing some Serum research, but it could be that they were interested in his general genetic code. He's... 'perfect' is a strong word, but he's... been enhanced."

"His sister could do something, tachyon fu. She moved so fast I couldn't even see her. Ian eventually took her down on the battlefield."

"Ian can do that?"

Steve shrugged.

"Now that you're up and awake, and Ian's early history isn't filtered through him, we might be able to make some progress." Tony punched a few more buttons, bringing up a fairly sparse organizational chart with a lot of question marks on it. "Even after Ian told me you had just arrived when he was born, we still didn't know anything about your escape, or the setup."

"I was knocked out on the train there, couldn't have been out for more than a few hours, even drugged to the gills." Steve closed his eyes, probably trying to remember the exact way things had gone. "He injected me with the chest infiltrate, and then... I pulled out the needle there, got my shield, picked up Ian on it, got out of there..."

"So Zola definitely knew you'd be coming?"

He got a nod from Steve in response. "They kept Sharon from coming with me."

"Odd."

Steve made a questioning noise.

"They could have knocked her out just the same, killed her if she wasn't needed."

"Cheerful."

"Practical." Tony tried to decide what might have been the motivation there. "Maybe they wanted her out here for some reason, another part of their plan..."

"You don't honestly think Sharon--"

Tony held up a hand to stall the protest. "No, I don't, but it doesn't have to be conscious, it could just be that they assumed whatever Sharon would do here would be more beneficial to them than just killing her outright. She doesn't have to have set you up to be useful. But-- she's on suspension, which is SOP when an Agent is lost, so she wasn't going to be doing anything." He gave a hopeless little sigh. "You're the one who actually remembers being the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., you tell me, what's the next step when a high-value asset goes missing?"

"Suspension, investigation, _lots_ of investigation."

" _Cui bono_?" Tony asked, and he punched up an organizational chart of S.H.I.E.L.D., trying to see where the benefit of an investigation would fall.

"There are a few other assets under Sharon, they'd have less scrutiny. If she were killed in action, she'd have been replaced, maybe some of the assets would have been pulled completely; an investigation of the magnitude that comes with... losing Captain America would take a lot of heat of any other active investigations, too. That would benefit a dirty investigator, or one of the people under scrutiny." Steve looked over the chart, standing only inches from Tony, shoulder to shoulder.

"It's really good to have you back," Tony said, looking over at Steve and just... He hadn't even known Steve was missing, but having him here, spitballing ideas, was wonderful. Tony _needed_ Steve in his life, ask anyone; they were better together, even if they'd never be... anything more than what they were now.

"It's good to be back," Steve answered. "I missed all of you, I just--" He watched as Steve closed his eyes, lids heavy, and let out a sad little sigh. "I thought you would have given up on me."

Tony had done that once before. He hoped he would never do it again. "No." He pressed a hand to Steve's arm, and gave it a little squeeze. "And we've been working on this, just... there's been a lot going on."

"This is important, but... you have no idea how good it is to see him just... like normal things. You and Sam both..." Steve hung his head, and then leaned in, before he gave Tony a firm, full bodied hug. "I'm glad you helped him."

"Hey, he's your kid. Us looking after him was your dying wish, and I--" If there was one thing he could do, it was fulfill Steve's dying wishes.

Steve didn't say anything in response, just gave him another squeeze. "We'll get working on this. I'm not Captain America right now, I'm just Ian's father, but we can go over everything again and make some progress."

"I don't think you'll ever be _just_ his father," Tony said, but he understood. "I'll get you everything we have, maybe you'll be able to make more of it." He gave another glance at Steve, saw he was looking at the screens with his jaw set. "I'm doing chess, science, and philosophy with Reed tomorrow over at the Baxter Building if you want to bring Ian."

"I'm... going over to Sharon and my old apartment to pick up my things in the morning."

Steve looked wrecked by that, eyes screwed shut and his head bowed.

"So did you two...?"

"Nothing's decided," Steve answered. "We... she's never particularly wanted children, Tony. That was _fine_ ; I think we both knew that we didn't have a life to give a child, but it's not a choice any longer; I have a son. I love him, wouldn't give him up for anything."

"Not even Sharon," Tony said. He knew Steve had always, deep down, wanted children. Maybe it wasn't so deep down, actually; the number of times a post-mission debrief had revolved around someone taunting Steve with some perfect, wife-and-two-kids fantasy was truly impressive. "Hey, give her some time. Ian's great, he's... adjusting."

Yes he'd woken up Tony at five in the morning that morning 'because he was awake, now' - which Tony had only just realized was code for 'I wasn't sure if I was on Earth or not so I had to see you' - but he was getting the finer points of Earth, one by one.

"He'd win over anyone."

"Thanks." Steve looked back over to Tony and sighed. "Why don't you take him with you if I'm not back?"

"Done."

Steve left him to his work, and Tony went back to it. Tony found himself hoping for Steve and Sharon working it all out; his life was so much easier when he wasn't tempted by Steve in his occasional spates of singleness. Of course, he wasn't an idiot; it was obvious that Steve was 'a man out of time' again, and Tony wasn't certain what to do with him a second time around.

~3~

Steve had taken one of the Avengers cars along with a dozen or so folded boxes, and the sinking feeling of dread and defeat getting more and more prominent as he got closer to the apartment he shared... used to share, with Sharon. He parked on the street and took the stairs up, folded boxes under his arm, before he finally gave a soft knock on the door.

It opened a few seconds later. "Not even using your key?" Sharon asked, leaning against the door, appearing for all the world to be casual if Steve didn't know the truth.

"I lost it," he admitted. "Three... four months into the wastes." He hadn't had a strong tally of the days back then. "Used the whole keyring to distract some harpies, actually..." They'd had good hearing but lousy eyesight, the jangle had distracted them long enough for Steve to get Ian's screams under control. He'd still been too young to realize that an ill-timed whimper could mean death.

The unsubtle reminder of his time in Z made Sharon frown, but she stepped away from the door and let him in. He set down the boxes, and then turned to look at her; he wasn't so cruel as to just start packing away his half of their life together without a word, but... "How are you doing?" He asked.

"Isn't that my question?"

Steve didn't answer, just waited her out.

"The inquiry has... settled down a bit, now that you're not MIA anymore." Sharon sighed. "I assume that's not really what you mean."

"No," Steve admitted, and he finally reached out a hand to touch her elbow, and Sharon didn't pull away. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I put you through this."

"Steve, you--" Sharon shook her head. "You were in another dimension for _thirteen years_. _I'm_ sorry I put _you_ through that. Yes, I'm upset you met someone, yes I'm upset that you had a child with her, but... staying mad about that would be counterproductive."

Steve let out a breath in relief.

"Do you still love me?"

"Yes," Steve answered, without hesitation. "I missed you. I thought I was robbed of our whole life together. But-- maybe I was anyway."

Sharon didn't pretend to misunderstand. "Ian. He's--" She didn't have the word, apparently.

"He's incredible, Sharon," Steve said. "He's smart, he's so selfless and thoughtful, he's strong-- he's perfect." It wasn't just because Ian had been designed that way, either. Jet had been 'designed' as well, but she had the same strength Ian had, had still managed to turn against Zola in the end. "I know we talked about children."

Talked about not having them. At the beginning of their relationship, when Steve was new to the modern world, he hadn't even thought about children with Sharon until their relationship was blessed by marriage; after a time, when he became more comfortable with the future's sexual mores, he'd become more comfortable with the idea of children out of wedlock, but... Sharon didn't.

Steve loved his job, more than almost anything, but Sharon did as well, and he knew that a child wouldn't be the end of _his_ career. Her aunt, Peggy, had made the exact same choice years ago, and Steve respected that choice just as much.

Sharon had been lost in her own thoughts. Steve could see that when he glanced back over to her. "I've thought about it," she said. "Again. He's great."

Steve heard the 'but' loud and clear. "You wouldn't--" He stopped himself, of course Sharon wouldn't have to be Ian's step-mother, but where did that really leave them, two pieces of family, attached by their connection to Steve and nothing else. "You don't have any interest in helping me raise him."

"I'm not sure I'd want to if he were _mine_ ," Sharon answered. "I'm not going to be that step-mother who sends the kid off to boarding school. I liked what we had, but I know we can't have that back."

He was, for a moment, prepared to try, but he knew that would be fair to neither Ian nor Sharon. "No, I suppose we can't."

"I know you've wanted children," Sharon said. "But you were always so wrapped up in your job, always willing to wait or push it off or ignore it."

"The time was never right." And surprisingly, it was _Zola_ of all people, who forced him to make that time.

"I knew you would have wanted that little girl." Sharon put a hand low over her stomach, resting there. Steve knew the scar well, from where Sharon had stabbed herself, hard and deep, in order to end their child's life before it even began.

Steve hadn't been there, not even Sam had, but Sharon had told him about it, a few months after he'd come back from being lost in time. Steve had listened, as best he could, he'd held her hand, they'd talked, Sharon had apologized and Steve had said, in all honesty, that there was nothing to apologize for. Sharon had done what she felt she needed to do; who knew if Zola would have done something to their child before it was born - knowing what he knew now, Steve thought it was _likely_ , not a possibility.

"I wasn't there," he answered, voice surprisingly thick, even do him. "You did what you had to."

Sharon rarely cried, too many years of training to let her emotions run easily, but she did then, and Steve pulled her into his arms without even thinking about it. That came back easily enough, holding her, even after a dozen years.

"It's alright," he said, hands on her back. "I'm sorry."

She pushed herself away after that, hands running over his chest for a moment before she let them drop. "I'm sorry," she answered. "I wasn't made for being a mother. I definitely wasn't made to be a step-mother."

"You're still one of the most amazing women I know," Steve said, completely meaning it. It hurt, though. Part of him had hoped... it was ridiculous, really, he'd expected to come back to Sharon nearing fifty, old enough that a child might have somehow fit in her - _their_ \- lives. A young child didn't fit into the life of a woman still in her prime, who was still out in the field and loved it there.

"I'm sorry, I think we should..."

Steve nodded. "I need some time, anyway," he admitted. "I'm taking a leave of absence from S.H.I.E.L.D."

Sharon blinked up at him. "What?"

"Ian needs more time to adjust. _I_ need more time to adjust." Steve ran his fingers through his hair, still cropped messily from his time in Z, even if his beard had been buzzed close while he got used to the idea of not having it at all. "I can't be out in the field running ops when I'm worried about my son at home."

Sharon took another step back, her mouth slackened in surprised. "Just... be Steve Rogers for a while?"

He nodded. "It won't be forever, but it'll give us both some time." The loss stung, even if he'd made peace with it years ago. He'd known that if he made it back home, his and Sharon's relationship wouldn't be the same, but the true shock was how little time had passed, but how much had changed.

"What are you doing in your ex-girlfriend's apartment instead of spending time with your son, then?" She asked, voice light, but Steve knew she had a point.

"We had to talk," Steve protested.

"We talked." She leaned in and gave him a hug. "Take some clothes, I'll get the rest packed up and delivered to the Tower."

He took it for what it was: Sharon's request to be alone right now, and so he headed into their bedroom, _her_ bedroom, and tugged out his duffle before going through the dresser and the closet. Everything was-- in its place, and he didn't even realize until the sixth neatly folded shirt that he brought from the dresser into his bag that Sharon had held out hope that he would make it home. It hadn't been long, two weeks, but he'd been missing on a bad op with bad intelligence, and she'd kept his things exactly as he'd left them. It felt horrible to repay that loyalty with a lie, but he shoved the feeling down as he brought over more clothes, and then slung the duffle over his shoulder.

"What if Ian weren't--?" He didn't finish the thought, though, because that would have been all the admission that Sharon needed for her mind to work overtime, eventually solving the problem that Tony had with more information available to him. ' _What if Ian weren't my son?_ '.

"But he is," Sharon answered, not even realizing that she'd answered both the question he'd thought, and the question she must have imagined he was going to ask: ' _What if Ian weren't in the picture?_ '

And then she gave him a peck on the cheek. "I love you."

"Love you, too, Sharon."

He took the car back to the Tower, a duffle of clothes and a few knickknacks worth of memories in the trunk, and he tried not to think about shutting the door on that part of his life. He and Sharon had lived in a perpetual on-and-off state almost since he'd woken in the future, but this felt like a change, a shift from that on-and-off to something more permanent.

Sharon didn't want kids, Steve had one, and unlike a time before Dimension Z, when the children were hypothetical and Steve was no more ready for children than Sharon, Steve couldn't imagine his life without Ian now. He didn't want to. To send Ian away, even if it was somewhere like the Jean Gray School, only an hour or two away by train, would seem completely unacceptable. Even sending Ian to the Baxter Building - ten blocks away - seemed far, but he knew that was an impulse that would ease with time.

"Dad!" Ian greeted him with a hug as soon as he stepped onto the common floor. "Tony said you might not be home until late, but we're going to the Baxter Building! The Fours live there."

"RICHARDSES!" Tony yelled from somewhere that Steve couldn't see.

"Richardses," Ian corrected, still talking too fast. "And the building can go to another Dimension, not Z, and there are kids there who are my age and Tony says I can go to school there when I finish my tutoring if you say it's alright and..."

Steve leaned in, and gave Ian a firm kiss on the forehead. "Wait until you see if you like it or not. Let me drop off these things."

Ian followed after him a moment later, somber. "Did you see Sharon?"

"Yes."

"Are you gonna stay mates?" Ian asked, voice even softer.

Steve had never hidden hard truths from his son growing up. He was always very blunt when the food stores were low or when the weather looked like it might be enough to finish them off. Ian knew what Steve telling him to look away meant, he'd seen enough death, but for the first time in his life - the second if you counted hiding his parentage from him - Steve felt the urge to lie. "No. I don't think so."

"My fault--"

The soft whisper was almost muffled by the sound of the duffle on the bed, but Steve caught it. " _My_ fault," Steve insisted. "Ian, it's not your fault."

"So if I wasn't here you'd stop being mates with Sharon?" It was the same question as yesterday. Just like the question of 'who were my parents' that Ian had pressed on him for years in Dimension Z. It was the question that Ian _knew_ he wasn't getting a straight answer on.

"No," Steve admitted. He turned and sat on the bed, and he patted the bed beside him. Ian stayed standing, arms crossed over his chest. "No, Sharon and I would probably have stayed together and tried to work it out if you weren't here."

Ian hung his head.

"Listen." Steve waited until Ian looked back up at him. "I would not trade you for her, ever. That's why we're not going to be mates anymore. You. Are. My. Son. You are the most important person in the world to me. I can't be mates with someone who doesn't love you that much."

"So Sharon doesn't like me?" Ian asked, voice small. "Is it because of Mom?"

Steve sighed, and then massaged his temple. It was the wrong thing to do, an innocuous little gesture, but Ian caught it, and a lifetime of experience had taught him to fear it.

"Dad?!" Ian's hands were on his face a moment later, looking him in the eyes. "Are you alright? Should I get Doctor Blake?"

Steve reached up, and took Ian's hands away, before he hugged them to his chest. "No. I just have a headache, a normal, boring, headache. No Zola."

Ian pushed his hands against Steve's chest for a moment, obviously content with that test, but that just brought his mind back around. "Why doesn't she like me?"

"She _likes_ you, Ian-- but she never wanted to have kids. Some women don't. It never mattered before."

"I want you to be happy," Ian whispered. "You spent years and years raising me, and you were so sad."

"I'm happy now." He would insist it as many times as Ian needed to hear it.

It earned him a hug, and a kiss on his cheek, but the doubtful look was still on Ian's face, and it broke his heart, because he was happy. He loved Sharon, he always would, but he had spent the last twelve years of his life fighting for a chance to get Ian home.

*

Dad sat on the bed for a few more minutes, and they hugged, but Ian couldn't shake the fear that he'd ruined everything for Dad. He wasn't working at the Shield, and Tony said that Dad was taking a break from Avengers, too. It worried Ian, because Dad _loved_ the Shield and he _loved_ the Avengers, and he _loved_ Sharon, and all of that was gone because of Ian.

"Tony wants me to go to see the Baxter Building," Ian said, wondering if maybe he should stay with Dad. "I can stay if you--"

"I'll come." Dad stood, and ruffled Ian's hair a bit, before he stood. "I could use the chance to get out of the house."

Ian tried not to sigh in relief, but he did follow Dad out of the room, and found Tony lounging against the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of water. "Ready to go, kiddo?"

"Yup!" He dragged Dad's hand up as well. "Dad's coming too."

"Arm?" Tony asked. Ian held up his photon shield bracelet. "Armor?" Ian tugged down the neck of his t-shirt.

"What's that all about?" Dad asked.

"Tony doesn't want me to get stabbed by terrorists, again." Ian said, and started to tug Dad to the elevator.

"Again, Tony?"

Tony just shrugged. "I already copped to that, guilty as charged."

Dad shook his head, but he let Ian drag him onto the elevator and then the three of them headed down to the street.

Tony had said the walk wasn't far, and for Ian it wasn't, but it did give him enough time to enjoy the weather. It was hot - Tony said that August was the grossest month for hot - but it didn't bother Ian compared to sandstorms. To Ian the weather was a comfort, and he wasn't looking forward to the snows. Ian remembered those days only dimly, when they were forced to drink snowmelt instead of crystal waters, and he worried about snowsnakes.

"Are there snowsnakes?" Ian asked, head tilted up towards Tony.

"Nope."

The three of them finally made it to the Tower, the Baxter, and Ian looked up at it. It was much shorter than Avengers Tower, but it was sleek and white and looked very nice. Tony walked right in, and unlike the Avengers there wasn't anyone waiting for them inside of the door.

A thin beam of light came out of the ceiling, and Ian tensed, only to feel Tony's hand on his shoulder. It came down over them, doing some sort of... science to Tony and Dad first, and when the line hit him he didn't even feel it.

"Identity confirmed: Tony Stark. Identity confirmed: Steve Rogers. Identity unknown: confirmation required. Physiology: augmented. Please state name for records."

Ian looked up at the ceiling for a moment, and then glanced to Tony, who nodded. "Ian Rogers."

"Put him on a day pass under my name," Dad said.

With that solved, they climbed into an elevator that took them up to another floor that looked much like the Avengers Tower kitchen and dining area. "Tony, Steve," a pretty blonde lady, with hair only down to her chin, greeted them from the kitchen area where she was scribbling something down. "Tony, I'm sorry, I tried to remind him but--"

"Reed has once again forgotten we have a date, so he has hidden himself away--"

"Lab, floor seventeen," the lady answered.

"Thanks, Sue. I'll go round him up for some science." Tony then walked over to the lady and kissed her on the cheek, which earned him a hug and a kiss on the cheek in return.

"Date?" Ian turned up to look at Dad, frowning. "I thought the Richardses were mates. Do they have an understanding for having multiple mates due to high status?"

"Gottagobye."

"Tony!" Dad yelled after Tony as he fled like harpies were on his tail. After Tony was gone, Dad rubbed his hands over his face and then looked over to the woman, Sue. "I'm sorry, Sue. This is my son, Ian."

"Nice to meet you Mrs. Richards."

"Son?" Sue asked, but she stood up and came over, giving Dad a big hug. "Tony mentioned you'd been stuck in a parallel dimension for a while, but--" Dad kissed Sue on the cheek, too, which meant that it had to be something different than a mates thing. "Ian? It's nice to meet you, too. And to answer your question, Tony was using the word 'date' to just mean a meeting between him and my husband, sometimes Tony calls them 'man-dates', a date is also a type of fruit, and a word for two people spending time together for purposes of--"

"Mating." Ian knew that one. "I didn't know dates were so complicated. But if mate dating can be for boys, girls, or boys and girls, how do you know if it's a date or a date?"

"I can see why you brought him, he fits right in," Sue said to Dad. "The short answer is that it's complicated, and it's about reading social cues, body language, orientation... and a lot of different factors to tell which one it is. Tony and Reed get together and play chess and work on projects together all the time, and Reed's straight - that means he only likes mating with the opposite gender."

"Girls. So Reed and Tony aren't _dating_ because Reed wouldn't mate with Tony?" Ian tried to sort that out in his head. It still seemed very complicated to Ian, and he sighed, and said as much.

Sue just smiled. "You'll figure it out more when you're older."

Sue and Dad sat down at the table after that, and Ian joined them, looking at them both at they chatted. "Tony suggested it might be good for him to spend some time with the Foundation. Most of them didn't grow up in... standard modern America, and neither did Ian. He could use that to help him get used to America from an outside perspective."

"Not the Jean Gray School?" Sue asked.

"Logan talks a good talk about keeping kids away from the front lines, but-- I want him somewhere more about using his mind, and finding a better way." Dad looked over to Ian, and the sad eyes were there, the ones when Dad was thinking of home or Sharon or having to hurt someone for the best. "And I'm man enough to admit I want him to stay local."

Sue smiled back at Dad after that. "Ian, would you like to look around? I'm sure you’ll run into some of the children and they’d be happy to show you the sights."

Ian looked over his shoulder. Nothing _looked_ dangerous, but Tony was very firm on the subject of mortal peril. "Tony says I need adult supervision on unapproved floors."

"That's the difference between the Baxter Building and Avengers Tower, every floor is approved. Go ahead. Try the fourteenth to start."

Ian checked with Dad, who nodded, and then Ian headed back to the elevator and then pushed the '14' button and went upstairs more. It was clean, and white, the same as every other room he'd seen so far, but eventually he came across a large... pool, he thought was the word. The pool in Avengers Tower was not full of life, however, there were rocks, and sand, and... waterfish, and two creature people inside that looked to be shaped like Ian, people shaped.

They looked at him, and made a screechy sort of sound for a moment, and Ian looked at them, confused. "Hi?"

Nothing looked threatening, and Ian tried to remember what Sue had said 'every floor is approved'. Sue would not have sent him to this floor, especially, unless she thought it was safe.

"I'm Ian?"

"Iiiiiiannnn."

He startled, for a moment, but his reflexes were good, he spun around and had the shield on in a flash, ready for whatever trouble awaited... but it was just three people, and a head in a jar... that floated.

They were all different heights, and one was wearing a dress. "Shield!"

"A photonic shield," the head in a jar said. "It is used by Captain America."

Ian looked at the three and a half of them and frowned a bit. "Captain America is my dad, and Sue said to come to the fourteenth floor." He looked around again, only to realize he was now surrounded. The fish men were out of their pool, and they had their own jar heads now, but theirs had water in them.

"Ooooo..." One of the brown looking people - with a 10 on his chest - came forward, and poked the shield, and Ian tried to remain calm. They were friendly... he hoped.

"There are introductions on meetings," the head said.

Ian calmed his breathing a bit, and stepped back. "I'm Ian," he said carefully. "Ian Rogers, Captain America is my dad and my Uncle Tony said I could come here to learn more about Earth."

"Mik!" The tallest yellow-brown boy said. "My brother is Korr, and my sister is Tong, and the wisest of my brothers is Turg." Turg was the head in a jar... Ian didn't think that seemed particularly wise.

Ian nodded. "What are you?" They reminded him of home, enough so that he felt a little pain in his chest just looking at them. Their faces sagged, like the eldest Phrox, but they behaved as children, and they were yellow, not red, but they were the closest thing to home he had seen in over a month.

"We are Moloids from the underground," Turg explained. "The Ben brought us to the light and now we have learned many ways to please the Ben and his wisdom guides us."

'The Ben' was their religious figure, then, and as Ian had noted before, the cultures of Earth revered the sun. "How do you honor The Ben?"

"The Ben is most pleased with snacks," Korr answered.

"And clobbering," Tong continued.

The Ben appeared to be some sort of huntsgod. Perhaps Ian would be asked to do honor to him by slaying an animal, that would be something he could do if that was what was required to make the friendship of the Moloids.

"Vil and Wu are Majesties!" Turg didn't have to point - which was good, because he had no hands - but it was obvious that he was speaking about the fish people. "And Uhari."

"Onome is also a Majesty," Tong said.

Ian then let himself be led around, Tong grabbing one wrist, Korr the other, and the two of them pulled him around the Baxter Building, with Vil and Wu staying behind.

"Captain America is Ian's father, but where is Ian's mother?" Korr asked.

"Heteronormative!" Turg said, which made Ian frown because he didn't know that word at all. He'd ask Tony, he was better at Earth words.

"Boys and boys are for smoochings but not for babies!" Korr answered. "Unless seahorses!"

Ian frowned. "My mom died, when I was a baby."

All of the Moloids hung their head for a moment and made a sad sound, which Ian joined them in.

"I'd like my dad to get a new mate, though," he said, since everyone was very nice and knew big words and seemed happy to meet Ian. "His last mate broke up with him because she doesn't like kids."

"The Jen says mates are unnecessary for happiness," Tong said.

"The Jen," the other three repeated.

"Well..." Ian frowned. "Dad likes having a mate, though, so he can be happy, and not alone, and do mating things. I don't want him to not have a mate because of me."

It was hard to explain to Dad, because Dad was his dad, and he wasn't sure Tony would understand because he did mating things with whoever - although he said he wouldn't mind having a mate either, so maybe he would understand.

"You should find your dad a person for smooching," Mik said, and the other three agreed, immediately.

They were right. Ian should find his dad a person for smooching.

*

Tony found Reed in his lab, working his way through some problem or another, looked Negative Zone related.

"Urgent?" Tony asked.

Reed glanced over his shoulder, saw Tony, and seemed to realize he was late for their man-date. "Tony, I'm sorry, I just got caught up in this. It's not urgent." He shut down the project and then stood, and the two of them headed down to one of the lounges that tended towards entertaining the adults rather than the kids.

"Commander Rogers is awake?"

Tony nodded as he set up the chess board.

"Biological agents aren't exactly my area of expertise." 

"Mine either," Tony admitted, accepting the offered drink glass, seltzer or sprite or something. "Well, that's why we have Banner, now." No matter how much history was there.

"Who'd you bring with you?" Reed said, tugging over a display as he looked over what looked to be vitals, perhaps some other information. "Super Soldier Serum positive, seems to have been enhanced on a few levels..."

"Ian." Tony reached out and tugged the screen away from Reed. "I already called dibs on him. No poking through his genetic code." Tony had no doubt that Reed would figure out the secret of the kid's origin in short order if he put his mind to it, but thankfully Reed had a hard time putting his mind to things that weren't right in front of him sometimes.

"The son of Captain America." Reed sat down in front of their board - only one today

"The son of _Steve Rogers_ ," Tony countered. Tony could see that in every move the kid made. "He's pretty incredible, actually. He grew up, with Steve, in a parallel dimension for twelve years, hunt food to survive, constant danger of death, patrols by creatures who would bring them to Zola in a heartbeat... and I set him up with a tutor and he's already balancing chemical equations and reading books for teenagers."

Reed was smirking at him.

"What?"

Reed's smile faded, only slightly. "You're dangerously close to pulling out baby pictures, Tony."

"I don't have any--" At which point Tony realized exactly what Reed was saying and he flushed. "He's not mine."

"No, but it's fairly obvious you've taken to him." A moment later he added: "And vice-versa?"

Tony nodded. Ian still wound up at his quarters most mornings, Ian had explained it simply as 'you're not Z, Dad is' and Tony had taken that for what it was worth. "I'm sure Steve's discussing with Sue, but we'd been talking about Ian spending some time with the Future Foundation. We had a Young Avengers bar-b-que at the Mansion, but... most of them are five, or almost ten, years older than him."

Tony also wasn't certain he wanted Ian and Loki in the same room, supposedly reformed or not. Steve probably would have had words about it, how they should trust in the god's capacity to change, but Tony wasn't going to go that far, not any time soon.

"Sue's also better at that whole--" Tony wiggled his fingers, trying to think of a kind word for it. "Quirky intercultural bullshit."

"She is." Reed chuckled at that, and then made his first move of the board. It wouldn't be an interesting match, or challenging, but they were mostly there to talk science, not be chess wizards. "Ian's welcome to come by. I'll have H.E.R.B.I.E. set him up as an authorized visitor. The Future Foundation isn't _just_ about the best and the brightest, Tony, it's about bringing together people from all different intellectual perspectives to tackle the problems of tomorrow. A child who grew up in such a different culture would be welcome."

Tony couldn't help the slight, unintentional, bristle at the idea. Ian was Steve's, and Tony had, in his own way, adopted him into the Avengers. The ultimate decision would be with Steve, and Ian, obviously, but the idea of him actually joining the Foundation rankled. Tony was protective of Ian, and even though he and Reed were friends, he felt a certain amount of scientific antagonism with the man.

He said as much; Reed didn't take it personally. He did, however, pick Tony's brain on the topic of reverse engineering a particularly tricky bit of alien tech, and Tony, in return, considered the recent Negative Zone energy pulses as a source of new engineering inspiration.

Steve and Sue talked themselves out after about four hours, and - Ian in tow - Ian broached the topic of 'Uncle Tony, we still haven't had Vietnamese food, let's go', and Tony was a sucker, so he went.

"Made any new friends?" He asked, as Ian tugged on his arm, a terrifying bundle of energy.

"Wu and Vil, they're Uhari; and Mik, Korr, Turg, and Tong, they're Moloids; and Val and Franklin, they're Reeds; and Bentley, his dad's a _supervillain_." Ian sounded _exceptionally_ excited about the last, which made Tony just a little concerned, until he continued on. "I didn't tell him about... yaknow, but he hates his dad and thinks he's a weirdo, and we talked about Zola and brainwashing, cuz his dad kidnapped him and tried to brainwash _him_ , so now we have a 'brainwashed by supervillains' club and no one else is allowed in."

"Mmm," Tony said, as he flagged down a taxi. "It's not quite as rare a set as you'd think. I was brainwashed by a supervillain once."

Steve arched an eyebrow at him, but didn't comment, probably because it was one of those things that Tony didn't often talk about, but they all piled into the taxi and headed off in search of Vietnamese food.

"So, you liked it?" Steve asked.

Ian nodded and snuggled into Steve's chest, in violation of all car safety, but Tony wasn't going to complain if Steve wasn't. "When can I go again?"

Steve actually looked over at Tony, and it took him a moment to realize that Steve was asking him for help. Tony supposed he and Reed were far closer than Steve and Reed were.

"Well you have tutoring every mid-morning through afternoon, and Mike three days a week in the morning," Tony said, straining to remember how he'd organized Ian's schedule; Pepper always made it look much easier. "So, weekends, and your two weekday mornings with no Mike."

Ian huffed, and then sighed. "I don't want to go to Mike anymore."

Tony thought that was the worst idea ever.

"Ian." Steve reached out and ran his fingers along the back of his neck. " _We_ are going to keep going, you and I both. We both need that. If Sue doesn't mind, you can go over for dinner sometimes, too. Alright?"

"Three times a week," Ian said.

"One." Steve gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze. "Maybe more later, but you don't want to miss eating out with Tony or me, do you?"

Steve had obviously hit the emotionally manipulative jackpot, because Ian looked unhappy at that prospect, immediately. "Fine, one day. Tony will keep coming to dinner?"

"I don't have to," Tony said. He didn't want to impose. Steve was awake again, and healthy. They didn't need him tagging along on their father-son outings.

Ian had picked up more than a few adolescent gestures, mostly from Clint, and so his youthful pout was well practiced and put immediately into action in Tony's direction. "Yes you do."

Steve laughed, and after a moment, Tony did as well. "Tony will come, sometimes, if he has the time. He's very busy with Avengers business and Resilient business, though."

Tony didn't mind, he liked spending time with Ian, but he'd done that for Steve - and because Ian was hardly a burden - and he would love to continue to spend time with the kid. It was odd to realize how much his perspective had changed in a few weeks; it didn't hurt that Ian was incredible, even between the sadness. "I'll make the time."

The conversation didn't continue through dinner, instead focusing on Ian carefully picking apart each of the dishes and asking what it contained. Food with Ian was always a treat; he took all of the best parts of feeding a younger child ('snake?! COOL!') with a type of adventurousness that most children didn't posses ('pickled vegetables? I’m ready!'). Tony loved it, and Steve-- Steve looked like he was on top of the world.

"You don't have to join us, Tony," Steve said, joining Tony in his lab after Ian had been sent to wash up and go to bed.

"Hey, you don't want me around, that's fine." Tony spun back towards Steve. "Believe it or not, I like your son. He's a good kid, he's hilarious, he's fun,... he's damaged." Tony glanced down, before sighing and looking back up at Steve. "I'm happy to be there for him."

Steve looked down at him, surprised.

"What?"

"Just--" Steve frowned, and then looked abashed. "I guess that's not how I remember--" He chuckled, apparently realizing that it was an unflattering assumption.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll admit it, Tony Stark and kids not something you want to mix, but there weren't a lot of other options, but apparently now I am... pizza."

"Pizza?" Steve asked, leaning up against Tony's desk now, relaxed.

"Ian said you guys didn't have a lot of grain products, cheese, or particularly satisfying meat, so he really loves pizza." Tony held his hands apart, trying to figure out what to say. "So I'm pizza, proof that he's here on Earth, not still there. Mike said it's fairly normal."

"And you're alright with that? I understand if you felt you had to while I was sick, but you have a life."

Ian had become a part of that life, surprisingly. Tony wasn't certain how it had happened; that wasn't true, he knew exactly how it had happened, it had happened because he cared for Steve, and as much they often disagreed, the two of them were too close for Tony to not take care of his son. "Steve, I can't imagine not helping. I like him; he's your son."

Steve seemed taken aback for a moment, but then smiled, before leaning in and wrapping his arms around Tony. "Thank you. I-- It's actually overwhelming, raising a son. You don't know how many times I questioned if I was doing the right thing, if my choices hurt him, if he was going to be alright and it was all worth it."

Tony laughed, and returned the hug. "Shit, I was only looking after him for five weeks, I thought that three times a day."

"So I can blame you for his _cussing_."

"Hey, I got him like that. You can't blame me for the salty language, soldier." Tony grinned over at him, and Steve returned it.

Something was on Steve's mind, though, and his face was crinkled for a moment. "Sue said she'd love to have Ian at the Foundation."

"I can see why that would be a reason for concern," Tony answered, voice dry.

"I just--" Steve raised his hands, looking at them, and then he frowned. " _School_. The Phrox didn't have school. It was more like an agrarian culture from hundreds of years ago where children went to work on farms or out hunting from a young age. There was story time by the fire after a hard day's work..."

"He's still pretty good at it," Tony assured him. "I mean, yes, he's in the gym a few hours a day, punching the hell out of whatever, or whoever, is available, but he understands why he needs to learn things, and honestly the Foundation is pretty hands on with its lessons."

Steve nodded.

"You're just freaking out about your son's first day of school."

The joke was less funny when Steve's face said exactly that: Steve was looking down at the possibility of sending his kid to school, to camp, to boarding school, to _life_ all rolled up into one potential moment. "What do I do?" Steve asked.

Tony had _no idea_. He tried to imagine what it was like, his month of getting to know Ian amplified over 144 times to encompass the years in Z, times probably a billion because Ian was Steve's _son_ , not just some random kid he felt a bit responsible for... "Um... I watch Star Wars with him?"

"I promised him I'd always be there for him..." Steve looked out over the garage and then sighed. "How do you be there when he's..."

Tony's own father hadn't been there for him, ever, so Tony had no idea how he was even supposed to answer that. "Ask Luke? Ask Sue."

Steve nodded. "I asked. Sue said it's this constant worry, will her children grow up right, will they be safe, how will they be responsible with their abilities, their intelligence... but she's there for them all the time."

"Pretty sure she's like an Atlantean Regent or something, and that takes her away, no idea how that works." Tony kicked off from his desk and turned to Steve, full on. "Look, parental pep talks aren't exactly my thing, but... your entire world changed, literally, it's going to take a while."

"Right," Steve said. "You're right. I keep..." He held up his hands, outstretched, and Tony watched.

"You feel like you should be out killing sky squid, or out pulling weeds, Ian feels the same way." Tony took his own deep breath. "I'm pretty sure he's concerned that one day Jarvis will go to the supermarket and be killed on some sort of food strike because of poor harvests, or something. He comes down to my room and checks my refrigerator in the morning, and eats my leftover pizza. Mike says it's all completely normal. You're going with him tomorrow?"

Steve nodded. "Are you coming?"

Tony shook his head. "Not unless you want me to. It's a lot of talking the same things over again. Mike could probably use your perspective, since he doesn't know what Z-normal is. My answer, 9 times out of 10, is 'hell if I know'."

"Thank you." Steve then surprised him, by leaning in and hugging him, way closer than Tony was ready for at the moment, but he returned the gesture. "I see why you're Ian's pizza."

He didn't know what to do with that, so he gave Steve's shoulders a squeeze, and Steve headed off while Tony spent the next four hours puzzling out even more code issues, and quinjet power issues.

~4~

Steve didn't take long to get a feel for Mike; he obviously knew his stuff, and Ian - as much as he protested - clearly trusted him, and was willing to discuss things that before had only been between him and Steve. It somehow felt like cheating, to have that other voice between them, but it helped to have that second voice, the calm assurance that brought some perspective to the matter.

"Have you tried any new food?" Mike asked.

"Vietnamese," Ian answered. "It was more noodles, from Vietnam, which is in Asia, South-East, and there was a war fifty years ago, and its hot. Also ants on a log, which are celery, peanut butter, and raisins."

"Did Jarvis take you to the store?"

Ian shook his head. "No. I was at tutoring, and I'm only allowed to not go to tutoring if it's an emergency... or if Dad's getting fixed." Ian turned to him and grinned, before he leaned in and hugged his side.

Steve wrapped an arm over his shoulder and kissed him, square on the crown of his head.

"How are you settling in to your new routine?" Mike asked, looking to Ian, not Steve, with his question.

Ian shrugged. "Uh... I'm still going to tutors, but Dad and Tony took me to meet the Future Foundation and talk to them about maybe going to school there after I'm done with tutors."

There was a long pause, one that felt particularly heavy to Steve, and Mike heard it too because he waited patiently for how Ian chose to continue.

"Dad's taking a break from Avengers... and S.H.I.E.L.D.... and his mate." Ian didn't continue after that, just nodded, as though that was all he'd wanted to say.

"Do you know what that means?" Mike asked, only glancing over to Steve for a moment before he returned to Ian.

"I-- yes. I don't want Dad to take a break, though." Ian paused, and it took a great deal of willpower to keep from arguing, since he was obviously a spectator here, not a participant. "I mean if Sharon doesn't want to be his mate, he can't change that, but... the rest?"

"Isn't that your dad's choice to make?" Mike asked.

"Not if it's because of me," Ian shot back. "Dad..." Ian glanced to him, and then back to Mike. "When we were in Z, Dad always said we were going to get home to Earth, that I would have a normal life. But... I don't want that."

Steve didn't quite know how to answer that, because he had given so much to get Ian here, and he had needed to do that. It was everything that kept him going for over a decade, but... Ian...

"Steve?" Mike prompted.

He found himself confused for a moment, but then he nodded. "I... I've never been very good at being there for other people, not... I love them, I've loved all my friends, every person I've been with, but if it came down to the personal or duty, it's always duty. I promised Ian I would always be there for him, even after we got home, _especially_ after he got home."

"Dad always said you don't waste time missing things you can't have," Ian said. "So... when he couldn't have Avengers or S.H.I.E.L.D. or a mate it made sense, but he can have those things and... I'm not a baby, I can take care of myself a lot. I want to be an Avenger, but Tony and Sam say I need to go to school because that's a kid's job, so I don't have to worry about food and a house, because that's Dad's job... we used to be happy, but now he's sad."

Mike didn't say anything in response to that, and the words left Steve with far too much to chew on. He certainly hadn't thought about himself as sad, but thinking about it it was easy to see how Ian had come to that opinion. "Years ago, being an Avenger was the best part of my life, now you are. If I _ever_ do something to make you feel otherwise, I wouldn't be able to forgive myself."

Ian nodded, but he didn't quite seem convinced. "Can you do both? Isn't the Avengers so that you have lots of people to rely on? So _we_ can have lots of people to rely on?"

"I--" Steve glanced over to where Mike was sitting, looking for all the world like he was just a casual observer, not intruding at all in the moment. So he turned back to Ian, trying to make his son understand why this wasn't as easy as 'can't you do both'. "What if I fall back into...? I know how easy it is for me to get lost in principles and big ideas, to forget how important people are to me."

"It's not like I can't tell you you're being an idiot," Ian answered, with a grin.

Steve laughed, because Ian had never held him sacred, not the way some sons did. There was too much at stake for bullshit to not be called every now and again, not in the heat of battle, never then, but in the quiet moments, Ian had never shied away from these things. "You're alright with that?"

"Yes," Ian answered immediately, only to then guiltily glance over to Mike, who had an expectant look on his face. "No." He turned back to Steve. "I'm scared you won't love me any more, because... _because_."

"Then I can't--"

" _But_ ," Ian continued. "If you're not Avenging, then I'll know you aren't really happy. You didn't fight for my whole life to get me to Earth so that you could just be my dad here instead of there. You fought because you wanted to be here, too."

The worst part was, Ian wasn't wrong at all. Certainly there were moments, months of time that stretched on when they were in Dimension Z when Steve was happy beyond anything he'd ever been on Earth. The simplicity, the uncomplicated moments, even if they were because it was hunt or be hunted, kill or be killed, fight or die, were something that had made his life work. Still, he had yearned to get home and get Ian home, and it wasn't solely so that Ian could know the relative peace of Earth.

"I'm not quite ready to go back to being an Avenger," Steve said. "It's not because of you, it's because of me. I'm-- going to keep working for that, though, because you're right, I want that. It's a part of me I can't give up for long."

"And S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

"That'll take longer," he answered. "Avengers first."

"And a mate?"

Steve gave a sigh at that, because he would latch on to that for some reason. It had never bothered him when they were in Dimension Z, but apparently now that there were other humans around, Ian thought it was very important that Steve had someone else. "If I find someone who fits with both of us, not just me."

"Alright," Ian said, and he leaned in and hugged him close. "I want you to be happy."

"I am."

"Happier."

Steve laughed. "Alright, alright."

It felt good, to hear Ian say that, to... _demand_ that Steve split his life up that way. The truth was that he wanted that, and yet it was hard to convince himself he could have both equally. He wasn't sure how he thought Ian would ever let himself be forgotten, but more than that he couldn't imagine forgetting what his son meant to him.

After the hug, and Ian had snuggled into him before pulling away, Mike gave them both a smile.

"Ian, I want you to keep writing about your experiences, how you remember them, and the things that happened, but it also sounds like you need to talk to your Dad more about what being on Earth means for both of you."

Steve nodded, and Ian did too, somber. The eventual trip back to the Tower was mostly silent, Steve walking with Ian at his side as the pair made the fairly long trip back. Ian seemed more comfortable with it, though. As much as he was comfortable with vehicles, he still liked the journey by foot, it was probably more familiar... even if every third hot dog cart was a trial of explaining that no, they did not need a hot dog right now.

"You know what I miss?" Ian said.

Steve shook his head.

"Hunting. Jarvis takes me to the store sometimes, and that's not hunting at all, everything is always in the same place, and it says right on the ceiling where things are, and you can go and _ask_ and the seamongers give you fish or squid or hunters give you steaks without you doing anything," Ian continued to rant, as this was obviously something he'd been thinking about for several days. "I don't like it. Tony says the whole point is you don't have to spend every day hunting so you can go to school or watch movies, but... I miss it."

Steve understood the disconnect. He remembered when he'd first gotten to the future, after wartime rations and Depression era meager food, the future had seemed beyond decadent, and Ian was no doubt getting exposed to Tony's slightly cavalier attitude towards consumption. "People hunt," Steve said, finally.

"They do?"

"Yeah, deer, bear, turkeys... coyotes..." Steve wasn't sure he should encourage that, but at the same time, the idea of his son losing track of the heritage of Dimension Z as he got older wasn't something he liked to think about either. Ian had gone on his first hunt when he was just a child, helped feed the clan and help them survive the winters. To Ian, hunting was survival in a way that the other Avengers wouldn't understand, and Steve wouldn't have before Dimension Z.

Ian looked up at him, eyes wide and pouting... which Steve had absolutely never taught him how to do.

"Who taught you that?"

"Uncle Bobby."

Steve laughed. Maybe Ian, and Mike, were right, that he could be an Avenger and raise his son, it was obvious that everyone from the core Avengers he'd known for years, down to many of the newer recruits, had all but adopted Ian. "We have to take a course," Steve said. He'd looked it up, ages ago, when Thor had talked about wanting to go hunting. "So that you can prove you can hunt responsibly."

Ian grinned up at him. "So we can go?"

"When hunting season opens."

"What if you really needed food, but it wasn't hunting season?" Ian asked, listing, again, towards a hot dog cart and Steve just put a hand on the back of his neck to steer him forward.

"Supermarkets."

"I hate supermarkets."

Steve ignored the snipe, since he knew Ian didn't really mean it. "We should probably tell Jarvis to research some cooking recipes for venison and bear."

"Bears and deers and coyotes have fur, right?" Ian said, not waiting for the answer, since the question was obviously rhetorical. "We should do something with fur..."

Ian wandered off into his own world, thinking about something, and Steve watched him as he did so, his son, totally wrapped up in something... safe, home, it was perfect.

*

Ian and Dad finally settled into a new routine without too many issues. Dad, at least, returned to training with the other Avengers, and with Ian; Ian spent his time between tutoring, and spending time with Dad or the other Avengers - or watching Star Wars or other TV with Tony, and also Dad - and having Dad awake and home didn't change much, but it did help him feel more at home.

Tony and Dad kept investigating the people who'd tried to kidnap him, and wanted to investigate his blood, but that wasn't going anywhere either. Dad said they couldn't live their lives worrying constantly, though, so they tried to make a schedule, a routine.

Morning exercise, running and training; breakfast - Tony called it sickeningly wholesome, but Ian really liked omelets, and grilled tomatoes, and Jarvis was always happy to make them; tutoring for three hours; lunch; tutoring for three more hours; steal Tony away from his work and make him watch one TV show; more exercising, usually with exploring around New York with Dad or one of the other Avengers; dinner, almost always with Dad, usually with Tony and other Avengers; 'intercultural assimilation' - which meant watching movies with Dad, often with Tony if Ian pouted; and then sleep.

He went to dinner at the Future Foundation once a week. Today they'd had something that was all starchy and Moloid food, with fish, which was from the Uhari. After dinner, he ended up in one of the lounges with Bentley, playing a game where they had to play as Legos, fighting through the Star Wars.

"You were with your Dad before here, right?" Ian asked, fumbling with the controls. It wasn't hard, but it seemed like Bentley had a lot more practice than Ian did. He was still learning Fruit Ninja.

Bentley frowned, and went over on a block where Ian couldn't reach, leaving him stranded there while Bentley stewed. "He's a fruitloop though."

Ian nodded. "Do you ever worry he'll come back for you?"

"He does," Bentley answered, finally doing whatever it took to get Ian's guy up so that they could continue. "You know, when he's super crazy and gets out of whatever jail they put him in between when he's being whacky."

That didn't sound good.

"Why do you care? Want to join him in evil?"

Ian had thought about telling Bentley about Zola being his blood father when they'd first met, just because it was the same. He was an honest person by nature, Dad always said that was the right way to go through life, and Ian tried to be honest, but... he also knew how much it would have caused him trouble with Sharon and Sam, and even though the Richardses seemed to be alright with Bentley's dad being evil, that didn't mean that everyone else was, and the Avengers all liked him because Dad was his dad.

"I guess... trying to understand supervillains," Ian answered. That much was true. "I only know the one, and he brainwashed me to try to make me evil. I almost killed Dad."

"Be less brainwashed," Bentley answered, as they continued to jump and zap their way through the level.

"Well, yeah. That's not easy, though." Ian had _shot his father_ , and that wasn't even what he was really worried about. Zola would keep coming for him, he knew that, somehow, instinctively. He thought it might be in his blood.

Bentley blew a raspberry. "Your dad's Captain America, what do you have to worry about?"

Ian frowned, clicking his way through the mission. He knew that if he told Bentley, if he told anyone, his secret wouldn't stay that way for long. Tony had been very clear about that. "I dunno. It's not like my dad makes it sure I'll be good."

"You can be whoever you want to be," Bentley said. "That's what Dr. Richards says."

"My dad says that, too..." Ian answered.

"I think Valeria and I are gonna take over the world." Bentley waited for Ian to catch up in the game.

"You know, taking over the world is pretty dumb," Ian answered, which probably would annoy Bentley because he and Val thought they were super smart. "That's what Emperor Zola tried to do, he conquered a whole dimension, and made goop to take away your thoughts, and made Captains to kill humans, _and_ made a princess, which seems like a lot of work... and he still didn't win because my Dad kicked him in the face hard enough."

"And saving the world isn't dumb? Someone like _my_ dad just goes and tries to ruin it again."

"But he _doesn't_." The two of them started their fight against Darth Maul, and Ian tried to focus on that while explaining himself. "There's pizza, and the Foundation, and the Avengers... the world is good, because everyone here gets to be safe enough to do what they want. Dad says people fight for that, every day, in their own ways."

Neither of them said anything, the fight on screen going on for another minute or two, before they finally finished and Ian was subjected to a fist bump from Bentley. That was an Earth culture thing.

"I don't really want to take over the world," Bentley said as they arrived in the cantina before they headed on to the next level. "It's hard when your dad is evil."

Ian nodded, probably looking more sage than he felt. Bentley still wouldn't expect him to know what it was really like. "My sister was raised by Zola. She helped me and Dad get away in the end."

"What happened to her?" Bentley asked.

"She died."

The two of them nodded, silent.

"I don't want to play anymore," Ian said.

"Yeah, me neither." They saved and quit, before going off to find the Moloids and discussed how to further worship the Jen and the Ben.

Ian still thought about telling Bentley the truth, about his father, his genes that made him maybe bad, no matter what Dad said. He thought about Sharon hating him, maybe even Sam hating him, because not everyone would understand, he knew that. He would, eventually... people would know. That didn't mean that he wanted people looking at him funny in the meantime. He was already a kid from another world, he didn't need to be the kid from another world whose dad was a supervillain.

Obviously - as with all important things that had to do with Earth and weren't about Dad, or Sharon - Ian went to Tony's lab and pouted at him.

"What?" Tony said, ruffling Ian's hair, absentmindedly, as he continued to look over his work.

"I was thinking about telling Bentley about Dad and Zola," he said.

That got Tony's attention, and he put down what he was doing after a few seconds and turned towards him. "You think that's the right thing to do?"

"Well, I think you should tell the truth..." Ian started, only to watch a complicated wince sort of expression pass over Tony's face. "Dad says, but he doesn't _really_ , but he doesn't always tell the truth either, so that's not really something to judge off of."

"Pretty sure your Dad wouldn't want me to be teaching you lessons in moral relativism, but you need to do what makes sense." Tony reached out, and Ian swooped in for the offered hug immediately. "You kept it a secret for a reason."

"Because I don't want people to look at me different because of who my Dad is."

"Let me tell you a secret," Tony said, pulling him back so they could look eye to eye again. "No matter who your Dad is, people are going to look at you differently. You just like it better when they think it's Steve."

Ian nodded, because Tony was right, he did like that people saw Captain America as his Dad, and the idea of Zola being his dad wasn't nice at all. "Do you think that's wrong?"

Tony shrugged, not answering Ian at all.

"Yeah, that's super helpful."

Rather than say something, Tony hopped off of his stool and ushered Ian back out of the garage and back towards one of the public floors. While they waited in the elevator, Tony leaned back, sprawling against the side. "You're a smart kid, you've only been here a few months but you've gotten a feel for how the world works. You know as soon as it's out there, a lot of things are going to change, and you're not wrong to want to wait."

"What if it makes it easier for Dad to be mates with Sharon again?"

"What if it makes it harder?" Tony shot back. "Your dad taught you about the big picture, right?"

Ian nodded. That was always on his mind, how to protect the tribe, how to get back to Earth, how to take care of Dad, how to be good when things were still hard.

"This is a little picture sort of thing. You get to do what's best for you, and your dad, and no one else, because those are the only people who matter when it comes to this." They got out of the elevator on one of the common floors. "Why'd you tell me?"

No one else was there, and Tony pulled out the popper thing that they used for popcorn, and Ian scrambled away to the pantry to find the corn kernels. "I guess I thought..."

Tony didn't say anything, just fumbled with the popper more, and Ian clambered up onto a stool to scoop popcorn into it.

"Well, I thought Dad might die, and everyone says 'oh you're so like your dad', and..." Ian shrugged and measured out a cup of popcorn - because as soon as people smelled it they would descend on the room and _steal_ it. "I needed someone to know."

"And now?"

"I guess it's part of me, isn't it?" It was just so much a part of who he was, of who he'd become, that he _had_ to think about Zola being his blood father. Dad was his dad, he had raised him, taught him everything, made him the person he was today, but there would always be that doubt in the back of Ian's mind, and he didn't think it would ever go away.

"Sure," Tony answered, bringing out a stick of butter and completely ignoring the way Ian was grinning at him. "But it doesn't have to be, not like that. Sure it's a part of you, but it could be... it doesn't have to take up your whole life. I'm... I have problems, grownup stuff, and it's important that I always remember that, that I don't forget those things are there, but it's not every day. It helps to have friends who... understand me, know why I do - or don't do - certain things, but that's not all there is to me."

Ian didn't know what sort of 'grown up stuff' Tony was talking about, although Ian supposed, even though he was _twelve_ he didn't quite qualify. "Is that a mating thing?"

"No, actually." Tony turned up the heat on skillet. "Although I can't blame you for thinking it. My point is, you don't have to tell Bentley just so you can be friends. It can be something you never tell anyone and never talk about, but... sometimes it's good to know you have friends who know the bad stuff, along with the good stuff."

"So it's a _trust_ thing."

"Yeah, we'll go with that. Now, what do you say we watch a crappy movie, your pick."

"You realize that I don't know any movies but Star Wars and Star Treks and that means I just have to ask you for an idea of what movie to watch, right?"

"That's why I ask."

Ian stuck his tongue out and blew a raspberry at Tony. "Oh, are there any movies about Up State?"

"Up State?" Tony asked, frowning from his position at the stove.

"I know there's fifty states, and I remember most of them, but you think I'd remember Up State."

"Upstate, one word, it's not a state, it's a place. Whatever state you're in, up in the North, that's Upstate." Tony continued to work at the stove, and Ian pulled down two bowls for the popcorn, a big one, for the Avengers mooches, and a smaller one, for him and Tony that would get way more butter. "Why is Steve taking you Upstate?"

"Camping and hunting," Ian answered, Dad had shown him how camping worked, and Ian wasn't sure he liked it, the two of them had decided they were just going to bring a tarp, and a pair of sleeping bags, because that was more than they'd ever had back home. "When I was just a baby, Dad and I were outside and he fought our way through the wilds..."

After he'd caught up enough popcorn to fill his and Tony's bowl, Ian brought it over and Tony drizzled butter over it, and then drizzled some more, before they headed into the TV room and left the popper to keep going to make more popcorn.

"I'm going to be nice, and not show you a horror movie about camping..."

Instead they ended up watching a movie about a pair of Spanish boys who went to America and then there was a jaguar and Ian was pretty sure that the boys were mates.

*

Steve and Ian heading out of town for two weeks _should_ have meant that Tony got more work done, and he did, but he also wasted more minutes than he wanted to count checking up on the tracking device he had on Ian's shield. They had traveled upstate, as promised, and settled into some campgrounds and trails that were within striking distance of some hunting areas.

Tony checked in at night: asleep at the campground; he checked in during the day: the two of them making careful pace through hunting areas; he checked in in the evening: occasionally in one of the local towns, presumably provisioning or just taking a break from too much nature; and he definitely did not set up a tracking program to alert him if Ian's vitals started to register danger.

The alarm woke him up at about 3am, four days into their trip.

Tony took about a minute to argue himself out of climbing in the suit immediately versus waiting until the call came in from Steve or Ian.

Fifteen seconds later, A.I.M.E.E.'s calm voice came from overhead. "Mr. Stark, Ian calling for you."

"Put him through," Tony answered, still groggy.

"Tony?" The boy's voice was soft, and scared, and Tony didn't waste any more time fumbling out of bed.

"You alright, kiddo?"

"I-- yeah," Ian answered, Tony heard the deep breath, and then another, when he continued in a soft whisper. "I had a nightmare."

"Oh." Tony stopped, and then stared up at the ceiling even though he couldn't see Ian that way either. "I'm here," Tony answered. "You're on Earth. Deep breath. Relax."

He heard another ragged breath, and he closed his eyes, trying not to think about Ian in the wilderness, scared.

"Can you wake up your Dad?" Tony asked.

There was a pause. "I don't want to be a bother," Ian answered, voice still small, obviously trying to avoid waking Steve. "And..."

"Pizza?"

"Yeah," Ian sighed. "It's different, everything is really green, and brown, and the ground is pretty soft, and the trees are easy to climb, and I have a compass around my neck so I can find things because compasses work on Earth. Tonight we're at a campsite that has water and stuff, so we didn't even need to bring bottles or find springs... It's not like home at all, I shouldn't be scared."

Part of him, not a small part, was reminded that this was easily the thirtieth time they'd had this conversation, but another part of him remembered that he was trying not to be an asshole and Ian needed him right now. "It's always... one day at a time, Ian. You can't... you can't pick which days are easy, and which days are hard. Sometimes _nothing_ is wrong, and you still feel like shit and things still seem insurmountable; somedays _everything_ is wrong, but you somehow keep going. It doesn't always make sense." He was pretty sure it wasn't the same thing, but he tried to channel a little Henry, there. One day at a time.

"It feels weak." There was enough background noise to give Tony the impression that Ian was walking around, farther away from Steve, probably. "Dad always got back up."

It was one of the many things that Tony deeply admired about Steve - loved about him, to be honest - that didn't make it any harder when you felt like shit for not being as strong. "That doesn't mean it's not hard for him, too."

"He's not waking up at night and almost barfing from burnt dead body smell."

 _Tony_ felt like barfing after that. Instead, he rubbed his hands over his shoulders, thinking about what to say. Tony had killed people, he knew that, he remembered each one, he remembered the blood, sometimes the smell, but it was something that he'd slowly started to put away. It still hurt every time. "He didn't have to see that," Tony reminded him. "Ian, I know it's hard, your dad is amazing, he's what we aspire to be, but... he's... he would want to know you're having a hard time. He'd want to know if camping or anything you're doing is making you feel bad."

"It's good though, it's _fun_ , I'm happy... but..."

"No buts," Tony answered. "We'll talk more, and talk with Mike. I know it's hard, but sometimes you just need to focus on that."

A deep breath came over the communicator. "Are you working hard?" Ian asked.

"Yeah, getting a lot of work done." Tony recognized the request for what it was, so he continued to ramble about code and designs, that all was quiet on the Avengers front, he gave an update on Carol, on Clint, on Natasha, while he got himself a glass of water and pulled up some work - since he was awake.

Halfway into an explanation of some (very exciting) electromagnetism work, he realized he hadn't heard from Ian in a bit. "Ian?"

After the no answer, he pulled up Ian's vitals, heart rate down, respiration down. Tony snorted, finished the glass of water he'd been drinking, took a pee, and crawled back into bed.

Ian called again, a few days later, just about when Tony was really missing the kid, so it worked out well. That one was less horrible panic attacks and more 'holy shit camping is so much fun' to which Tony could only assume the kid was suffering from brain damage. Still... he'd missed him, and it was good to hear from Steve this time, too.

He may have made a point of... you know, just casually hanging out in the kitchen when he knew Ian and Steve were almost home. Jarvis didn't say anything about it, just kept him fed with carrot slices - castoffs from his cooking some sort of stew - and coffee, while Tony pretended to work.

His wait was not in vain, when Ian and Steve arrived in the early morning.

"TONY!" Ian ran up to him, Tony's back still to the room at large, and flung his arms around Tony's waist.

"You smell like you rolled around in a woodpile, mud, and ash," Tony complained, but that didn't keep him from wriggling so he could return the hug. "Too much rugged outdoors!"

"Nuh uh!" Ian continued to squeeze him, head resting against Tony's chest, until he finally gave in and ran a hand down Ian's neck and back.

"The smell is an objective fact."

It earned him a laugh. "Did you miss us, did you miss us?!"

"Not even a little bit," Tony answered, but Ian was smirking up at him before Tony could make it clear it was sarcasm.

A glance up showed Steve and Jarvis having a quick conversation, with Steve handing over a sizeable bag, filled with something in butcher's paper. Jarvis took it without question, and set it in the refrigerator.

"What's that?"

"Bear steak!" Ian answered, all grins.

"A bear steak... you bought _bear_?"

Ian blinked up at him. "No?" His face grew even more confused. "I shot it."

"You shot it."

"Pew," Ian said, pantomiming using a bow, like Tony was being intentionally stupid, or something. "And then Dad slit its throat and hung it and we bled it, and degutted it, but we kept the intestines because they make HOT DOGS!"

"I think I might never eat again." Tony did lean in and brush a stray hair out of his face. "So you killed a bear."

"Uh huh, and two deers, and a coyote. The deers needed tags because of limits, but the bear was fine. _Then_ we took them to a butcher and he cut them up into parts and ground the less steak-y parts, and then we made bear sausages, deer sausages, and burgers and steaks, and jerkies!" The words tumbled out of Ian's mouth, hands flying, obviously excited for reasons Tony couldn't quite understand, but damn if the kid wasn't excited.

"That sounds... like a lot of food."

"Yup!" Ian stepped back, and smiled up at Tony liked he'd gotten everything just right.

That was when Tony realized what the hell Ian was on about. Food. No matter how many times he and Jarvis assured him, or they went out to the store together, Ian always seemed... troubled that he wasn't part of a hunting party, or wasn't the one bringing food in. "Great job, kiddo. I'm sure Jarvis will keep the bear coming."

"Stew tonight," Jarvis answered, as though it was never a question, and suddenly Tony realized that Steve and Jarvis were plotting to foist game meat on them.

"Tony, I... um..." Ian took a deep breath, mouth twisted down slightly. "I got you something."

People didn't often give Tony gifts. Certainly they tried from time to time, but Tony was usually of the impression that anything worth having, that could be had for money, was worth having now. He was told it made him horrible to Christmas shop for. "Yeah?"

Steve then handed over a fairly hefty package, as big as a very large torso, wrapped in what looked to be more butcher's paper. Tony was suddenly accosted with visions of huge slabs of ribs or meat, made a gift by Ian. Ian took the package from Steve, and then walked it carefully over to Tony, and set it on his lap.

The idea that it was a huge slab of meat was dispelled instantly when it was heavy, but yielding, soft. He avoided the urge to give it a shake, but flipped it over and then peeled it open at the seam in the paper. Black fur peeked out of the opening there, and Tony pulled it open further to reveal that that was was it was, black fur. "Is this... is this from the bear you killed?"

He wasn't entirely sure what he wanted the answer to that to be.

"Back home, Phrox would give Dad and me fur or leathers because Dad was their Chieftain, but we live in your house, and you're the Chieftain, so... this is for you, from our hunt."

Tony had _no fucking idea_ what he was supposed to do with a bearskin blanket, but Ian had put thought into this, it was some... intercultural bullshit thing, they must have gotten it tanned fairly early along if it was ready now. This ridiculously fluffy black fur blanket that would assure Tony never got laid again was important to Ian.

"I love it," he said, surprised to find the words were entirely without irony. "Thank you. I... you're a great..." He didn't think there was a word for what Ian was becoming to him, even the tongue-in-cheek 'nephew' somehow paled in comparison to seeing wide brown eyes, and a cheerful face looking up at him, waiting. "You're amazing."

Ian, strangely, seemed to take that badly, and his face fell, which meant Tony immediately glanced up at Steve with a 'what the hell did I do?!' expression that Steve probably knew too well.

"He wants you to say you're part of his clan," Steve prompted.

"Oh." Tony looked back down to Ian. "Duh, bearskin not necessary. You've been in my clan since the day you came from Z. Don't let me find out you got Reed a deerskin though, no two timing."

"The deerskin's for me!" Ian shot back, but he was back to that happy face that set Tony at ease. "And one for Dad."

"Time for all little clanmates to take a shower, though, kid."

Ian laughed. "Fine, fine!" He _bounced_ , just a bit, before he headed out of the room and up towards his and Steve's quarters.

"Thanks for humoring him," Steve said as soon as Ian was out of the room.

"I'm... not," Tony answered. "I mean on the clan thing, sure, a little bit, but... if the kid wants to be in my clan, he's in. He's..." Tony didn't have a word, but the closest one he could think of, 'family', seemed horribly presumptuous. "He belongs here."

Steve's answering smile was more than worth the discomfort. "I'm glad he's fitting in, but I suppose he still can't get away from how much Dimension Z will always mean to him. Even for me, I remember the culture and the rites, and it's... almost as comforting as Confession or Mass, maybe more so, because I needed it even more than I did as a boy. He just..."

"Needed to kill something?" Tony asked, voice light. "I should have realized it sooner. He gets so freaked out over food, even though Jarvis feeds him all the damn time, no matter what; kid wants food, kid gets food. He likes to go shopping, even though we mostly get groceries delivered. I don't get it, I don't _know_ Z the way you two do. Of course, I grew up on Long Island, so I'm not particularly well-qualified to acquire food with my hands."

"Fishing at Montauk?"

"Hamptons, Steve, Hamptons." Either way, the answer was no. "Pretty sure you'd have better luck at that than me."

"I actually got pretty good the last decade or so."

It hit him, again, as it always did. Ian he understood because the boy had been born and raised in Z, and Tony had never known a 'before' for him, but here was Steve, hardened, changed, rough... _different_ even as he remained himself, and Tony was constantly reminded of how much time had passed for them, and how easy it had been, at least for Tony, to step back into old habits. "Maybe we should go fishing at Montauk."

Steve shrugged, seeming to dismiss the entire idea. "It's alright, I'm sure he'll feel better for a while. Thank you." Steve reached out, and squeezed Tony's shoulder. "I should probably get rinsed off, too."

"I should get psyched up for the fact that I'm going to be eating bear for the next three months, and never going to be able to invite a woman over due to _bearskin_." He laughed, though, because if felt pretty damn good to know that Ian wanted to be part of his clan, especially since he was pretty sure the kid understood he didn't need one.

"Any progress on the abductors?"

"Not much, S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps working the abduction angle, I keep hacking them and reading their files..." Tony shrugged. "Melody called." Steve frowned in response, confused. "The ex? I was thinking of asking her out..."

There were few things he wanted less, to be honest, but she was acting fairly... possessive. Maybe that meant something beyond a bizarre desire to connect with an ex-flame.

"If you like her..."

"Strictly business," Tony answered. "Go on, shower, send your kid over for Uncle Tony time, I'm going to go hide under my blanket in the garage."

Steve laughed, and with only a brief hesitation, he grabbed Tony around the shoulders, pulled him into a hug, and buried his face in Tony's neck. "I don't know if I'm remembering wrong, or you changed... but you're different than I remember."

"Bit of both," Tony answered, trying not to choke on the answer, because it was far too complicated to put into words in any way that Tony would find satisfactory. "I like Ian," Tony admitted, although he supposed it should be pretty damn clear by now. "He's a good kid, he needed... he needed someone, and I... I couldn't let you down, and then I couldn't let him down."

Tony punctuated that with a squeeze on the back of Steve's neck before he pulled away. Steve looked... happy. Tony couldn't quite express how freeing it was to have Steve with another decade of time for the things between them to be pushed aside. He had no delusions, he would disappoint Steve again, but the last betrayal - although fresh in Tony's mind - would not be so fresh in Steve's.

He left before he had too long to think about that. He did take the blanket with him, folded up, fluffy and black and huge, and he looked at it while he continued his day's work.

The thing belonged in his room. It didn't match _any_ of the decor, but Ian had gotten it for him, but it was important to him. There were so many things that Tony found himself thinking that about... it was important to Ian.

"Less stinky!" Ian announced, sliding into the space off to Tony's right. "Gotta say, I missed A.I.M.E.E." He flipped open the StarkTablet and started to poke at it.

"Which means you have taste. Your father likes to pretend he doesn't know what a StarkTablet is, or what a womp rat is. Can you believe that?"

Ian snorted.

"I know, right?" Tony fell into work mode for a moment, until he glanced over to Ian, watching something on his tablet, an earbud in his ear to keep from disturbing Tony. "Get over here."

He held out his arm, and Ian scooted over so he was tucked in next to Tony.

"Have fun?"

"Yeah," Ian answered. "I only had one bad night."

"That's good."

"I-- I know it's not the Earth way, but it's good to feel like I'm part of your clan, properly now."

"You already were," Tony said, ruffling his hair. "Make sure you tell Sue that, though. She can't have you."

"I dunno," Ian said, with the drawl Tony had long since started to associate with Ian's sarcasm. "I think she makes cookies with the moloids."

"I could make cookies."

Ian didn't say anything for long enough for Tony to grow curious, when he glanced over, Ian had an eyebrow arched at him.

"I could," Tony argued, now feeling defensive on the point. "I could .. have Jarvis make cookie dough."

"That's more like it."

"I don't know why I put up with you."

"Episode Six?" Ian asked, hopeful.

Tony wasted no time shutting down his work and urging Ian out of the garage, following after him. Episode Six time.

~5~

Steve didn't see Ian that night, which wasn't unusual since coming back to Earth. He'd taken to spending more and more time with Tony. Steve didn't mind, although he could admit that a small part of him was a bit jealous of the fact that Tony seemed to get so much of the boy's time.

He was up early, and although Ian often joined him for his morning run, he wasn't in bed and the bed wasn't made, which was unusual for him. After his run, he headed down to the kitchen, only to find Jarvis there, working on coffee.

"Do you know where Ian is?"

"In the lounge," Jarvis answered, without even looking up.

It only took him a moment to find Ian there, but he was shocked to find Tony there as well, the two of them curled up under the thick bear fur blanket that Ian had given him. Tony had an arm draped over Ian's shoulder, while Ian had taken to using Tony as a over-large pillow, arms wrapped around his waist. The two of them were asleep, Tony's head canted back - snoring - and Ian's head buried in the crook of Tony's arm.

That image struck him, so immediately and hard that he didn't even notice it coming: family. His son curled up against Tony... they'd obviously spent the night like that, maybe another night of restless sleep from Ian, and he'd sought out Tony, and Tony had taken that bearskin - that Steve was fairly certain he hated - and sat on the couch to watch who knew how much television until Ian fell asleep.

Tony looked... gorgeous, five o'clock shadow, snoring, head tilted back revealing a long, tanned throat... Steve didn't know why he hadn't noticed it in years. No matter how hard he tried to tamp it down, the back of his mind reminded him that he hadn't had sex in over a decade, and another part reminded him of just how many memories he had in his mind that weren't... 

That were of Zola and Mary, not during the happier times. It was enough to knock loose that spike of lust, and he must have made a sound, because Ian started to come around, and the movements woke Tony, the two of them yawning in perfect sync, and then stretching.

"Oh, man... I am so glad Clint didn't catch us like that."

"Never live it down?" Ian asked.

Tony snorted and threw the blanket over Ian's head. "Put that away, kiddo, I'll find Jarvis and get us some breakfast."

Tony still looked rumpled, his shirt askew enough to show the top of the RT in his chest, and the effort to scrub the sleep from his eyes and run his fingers through his hair just made it stick up worse.

"Nightmares?" Steve asked.

"Slept like a baby," Tony answered, without thinking, before he stopped, put his arms down, and seemed to realize what Steve was asking. "Oh... yeah... Apparently last night it was 'shot Dad in the back and tortured him' nightmare time."

Steve felt what little joy he felt from enjoying the look of a Tony Stark who wasn't nearly so put together evaporate. "That bad?" He heard his voice break. "I thought... I thought he was getting better."

"And I'll tell you the same damn thing I tell him: it's a work in progress." Tony wrapped an arm around his shoulder and started to guide him back towards the kitchen. "Do you remember what it was like for you, when you first came here? Hell, you can't tell me you've been having an easy time fitting back in now."

"It's..." Steve snorted. "It's a work in progress."

"So, yeah, the kid has his moments, and... I think you'd let him know that you're not in the best place either. He sees you, his father, he sees you having gone through the worst, gotten back up, gotten back up again... and when he wakes up in the middle of the night he thinks he's not as strong as you are." Tony pulled his arm away, but he left it with a gentle pat on his shoulder.

"He knows I..." Apparently not. Steve sighed. "I'll try... and thank you, Tony, you... what you did for Ian while I was sick, what you're still doing for him now, it's above and beyond."

"It's nothing," Tony brushed it off, again.

"It's _everything_."

Tony cleared his throat and took a seat down at the breakfast bar. Jarvis wordlessly served the pair of them omelets. "So Reed and I have another man-date tonight. I was going to take Ian if you didn't have any objections."

They decided Steve would go as well, even though that would leave him mostly with Sue. The woman was brilliant, and a good listener, and... to be fair, Steve was finding himself more and more in need of parenting advice.

He and Sue ended up in one of the lounges, joined intermittently by various kids passing in and out. "I don't know how you do it."

"Believe it or not, Reed helps." Sue gave him a smile. "People give him a hard time, but he's a great dad... sometimes."

Steve chuckled. "I spent so many years on so many different fears - would we get home, what would be waiting for us - and now I have all of these new fears; people will try to use him to get to me, people will gawk at him because he's my son... I don't have anyone, though."

The back of his mind whispered that he had Tony. Steve pushed it back. He did _not_ have Tony. The hand at his temple didn't dispel the ache.

"Sharon?" Sue asked. Her voice was soft enough for him to know she knew how difficult that might be.

"I don't think..." Steve shook his head. "It's complicated. There's Ian, and... everything that goes with him, and there's... Zola. He was inside my head for over a decade, some of his favorite methods of wearing me down included showing me what he had done to Ian's mother." He tried not to think of Mary, which was unfair to her, because he had to remember her, for Ian.

"He hurt her?" Sue asked.

Steve nodded. "It's hard to think about being... intimate with anyone, because of what's there inside my head. Mary was... incredible, strong... Ian was never able to know her, and inside my head it's..." He rubbed along his temples again, trying to push back the memories, the sound of Mary crying... "And Sharon has already told me she's not ready for children, and certainly not ready to be a step-mother."

"Well, you have the Avengers," Sue said. Her eyes were heavy, and Steve watched them, downcast and sad.

"They've been great." Steve knew he wouldn't have been able to do this without them. "Even though I'm not on active duty right now, they still let Ian be there and let him start to have a clan and a family again. He's anxious about that almost constantly, fitting into a clan again."

"And he has one. He's always welcome here, too. The Moloids love him."

"They remind him of home."

"Steve, one of the hardest things to remember sometimes is that you're not alone. I have to remind Reed of this all the time, and he he started the Future Foundation." She put out her hand, squeezing his wrist, and held onto him there. "Have you been talking to anyone?"

"Ian's going to a counselor for children who were formerly child soldiers." Even as he said it, he knew that wasn't what she meant. "No, I... I haven't seen anyone for me. Just going with Ian, making sure I understand what he's going through. Just this morning, Tony reminded me that my son thinks he's weak for still having nightmares about a twelve year long nightmare."

"He had you."

The idea that that was enough warmed his heart. "After the first year, we didn't often want for food, or even the love of the clan. I raised him with all of the love I could, and I still couldn't protect him from Zola, and his terror. I _know_ it will happen again. Maybe not with Zola, but with someone. How do you live with that?"

"Steve..." Sue squeezed his wrist again. "I've only had Franklin for a few years, the Future Foundation is barely a year old. You've been a father longer than I've been a mother. When I had the chance to see my son, full grown, from the future, I asked him and his sister if we had been good parents, and they said yes. I think that's the only thing you can do: keep trying, and hope that the things you do for them are right."

The Richardses had been a family for so long that Steve found that hard to grasp: he had been a father longer than Reed Richards. No matter how wrapped up the man got in his work, he was still, at his core, a father. Steve had thought that maybe he could find advice or guidance, and instead he found himself with more questions. Even though he had moved past worrying about kidnapping Ian from Zola, even though Ian seemed to have forgiven him for not growing up in the luxury Zola would have provided, the question still weighed on him from time to time.

"I still think of you as odd hands," Steve admitted. Sue quirked an eyebrow at him. "Well not _old_..."

She laughed, but after a few seconds of that she seemed to sober, considering. "I know we weren't close when you first came from the past, but... don't let yourself get closed off by this. _Talk_ to someone."

Sue was right, Sam was right, Donald was right... he needed to talk about all of this, it went so far beyond a normal experience though, and he wasn't even sure where to start.

He somehow ended up on the roof, with Sue and Medusa, drinking Bloody Mary's and talking about children's developmental years. It felt... good, he talked about Ian's first haircut, his first hunt, his first words, teaching him English and Phroxi, teaching him right from wrong, Earth history, the value of a life... teaching him respect for the animals they killed for meat, and the ground they used for their farming...

"Ahura reminds me so much of Black Bolt sometimes..." And Medusa, unknowingly, started a train of conversation that led to almost a half hour of going over their children, their various foibles, the places their children felt like theirs or their husband's...

Steve stared down into his drink, and then out over Manhattan. "Ian reminds me of his mother..." He tried to decide what to say, even as Medusa and Sue were talking about the ways that their children reminded them of their _biological_ parents. "I like to think I've helped shape him."

"Your son was immediately understanding of Tong."

He decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and that Sue didn't need to know that Ian had gone immediately to Tony to ask 'Tong said she had a girl on the inside, I thought it was usually the other way around' and Tony had produced an - admittedly fairly comprehensive - tutorial in gender identity, to follow on to the orientation one that Ian had already gotten. "Tony's been a big help."

"Tony?" Sue asked, incredulous. "Tony Stark?"

Steve felt the need to defend him. "He's been... I remember him, I remembered him when I was in Z, and I remembered him one way and then I came back... I'm jealous."

"Jealous?" Medusa asked, not quite seeming to understand the concept, or at least it applied to Steve. He supposed that made sense; the woman wanted for nothing.

"Ian goes to him, when he's sad, when he doesn't understand Earth..." When he's scared or upset about all of the things that happened to him over the few weeks that were his last in Z. "Maybe part of me that never thought of Z as our home is a little jealous that he's fitting in well enough to..."

He shook his head, trying to clear it.

"It's not that. I'm just happy he's fitting in. I wish I could be there for him more."

"I take it back," Sue said. "Even if the idea of Tony providing childcare is sort of terrifying."

Steve thought about this morning, about Tony buried under that ridiculous bearskin, Ian snuggled into his side. Maybe he didn't know all of the best things to do for a kid, but he did a damn fine approximation for filling in the gaps Steve hadn't even been aware he was leaving.

*

Afternoon hang outs with the Future Foundation were pretty cool. That was what Ian decided as he kicked back on a couch, watching some of the others play ping pong. He was out of the rotation for several games now, because he'd been winning too much, so he picked up a magazine off of the end table - U Weekly - and flipped through it.

There were a bunch of pictures in it, with a lot of words that Ian mostly skimmed over... until he saw a huge picture of his dad, with Ian off to the side just a bit, looking into a store window. _Steve Rogers: Avenger and DILF?_

Ian turned to Bentley, who was sitting next to him playing on a little game thing. "Do you know what a D I L F is?"

Bentley shrugged, and so Ian turned back to the magazine for answers.

The article continued in smaller letters, that Ian carefully tried to read without the help of Aimee. ' _Steve Rogers, the irrepressible Captain America, seems to have come back from a mission with more than a win for the U.S.A. - a serious case of DILF!_ ' Ian gasped, and then looked back down at the words again, reading them again, more carefully: _a serious case of DILF_.

"What?" Bentley asked, actually turning back from the game thing he was playing.

"I think it's a disease or something. It says Dad caught it?"

"No way, "Bentley answered. "Captain America doesn't get sick."

Ian knew that was a definite lie, so he turned back to the article. ' _Our very own Nina Weathersby caught our brave, delectable stud of the nation out and about with a young boy, who sources close to the Avengers name as his son, Ian. What this reporter wants to know is, who's the mother? Not that I can blame her for falling victim - wowee hot!_ '

So... DILF was definitely dangerous if they thought his mom had caught it, too. 

There were a few arrows that pointed to his dad that explained 'The Signs of a DILF' which included: his scruffy beard, the bag he'd been carrying that day for snacks and water because Ian didn't like to go out without it if he could, Dad's hand on his shoulder, and... his butt. There was also a lettered ' _hot damn_ ' under it, so... fever.

Those didn't seem like bad signs, but Ian didn't think he could be too careful if the magazine thought that DILF had finished off his mom... He pulled Aimee out of the pouch he had for her and then typed in the question: 'what is DILF'

'Restricted Content'

Ian frowned down at it. Aimee sometimes restricted content, that usually just meant he needed to talk to Tony, but now he was worried, maybe Tony hadn't mentioned the DILF because he didn't think Ian could handle it. Tony told him everything else...

'Signs of DILF' he tried again.

'Restricted Content'

He set Aimee aside and then looked at the assembled Foundation members, the Moloids... really most of the kids, he was the oldest one there, but they'd all been on Earth for longer than him. "Does anyone know what DILF is?"

"Diiiiiilf?" Turg asked.

The other three Moloids shrugged. Franklin, and then Valeria, shrugged. It was pretty bad if Val didn't know the answer...

"I... I think this might be bad," he said, looking down at the magazine again. "This says my dad has DILF, and that my mom got it... and my mom _died_." He held up the magazine for everyone to look at.

"Scott and Jen both say those are trash," Valeria said. "You can't take anything they say seriously."

" _Every_ threat needs to be assessed and taken seriously until it can be dismissed. My dad might have a _disease_ , and we need to find out what it is, how we can treat it, and what's going on with my dad." Ian stood up, fist clenched, as he looked out over the room. "This is important, there are lives at stake. Maybe Dad isn't sick but if this magazine knows about it then the Avengers know about my dad having DILF. Everyone here is smart, super smart, and none of you know what we're facing so we need to find out. We can't let my dad or the Avengers keep this from us!"

"Fine," Bentley said, standing. "We'll ask Dragon Man, he'll explain it in lots and lots of stupid, dull boring words, that I'm sure mean your dad's _fine_ , and then we'll 'assess' it or whatever."

Ian beamed at him, and he found the rest of the kids following him as they went in search of Dragon Man. They found him in the library - it was an easy guess - and after some whispers among themselves, Ian came to stand in front of him and took a deep breath. This was important. "Um... Dragon?" Ian asked.

He looked up from the book he was reading.

"We... I... I have a question!" After Ian was assured that he had Dragon Man's full attention, he took another deep breath. "I need you to tell me what DILF is."

Dragon Man didn't answer for several seconds. "DILF?"

"D I L F, DILF."

"That is to say... it's... I really don't think that's something I should talk to you about, you're... you're a human child."

"But we're all... pre... pre..." He glanced back over to Valaria.

"Precocious," she filled in. "I'm pretty sure he can handle it, Dragon."

"Nonetheless, I think that is something you should discuss with your father, yes?"

His father, so maybe his dad was sick. Definitely sick. The team regrouped outside of the library, and Ian looked at each and every one of them with a distinct air of 'I told you so' but the smugness was undercut by the fact that he was even more worried than he had been.

"This may be more serious than we originally thought," Valeria conceded. "So... let's talk to one of the Herbies in the infirmary. They know all about all sorts of illnesses. If it's a disease, they can help. Dad has them designed for state of the art medical stuff."

Course decided, they headed to the infirmary, where Ian looked, nervously, over to the Herbie bot that was floating around. After a shove in the back from Valeria, Ian went over to the Herbie bot. "Excuse me. Doctor Herbie?"

"Ian Rogers," it acknowledged and greeted him.

"I need to ask about a condition: DILF."

"Processing."

Ian waited, after it took a few moments, Ian glanced back over to the others behind him. It took longer than Ian really thought it should have, and Mik came over and put a hand on one shoulder, and Bentley did the same for the other shoulder, before Ian turned back.

"Negative," Herbie said. "Condition is outside of my ability to treat. Records indicate there is no known cure."

It took him a moment to process: no known cure. After those moments, mouth hanging open, stunned into shock that he never would have allowed himself to feel in Z, but here on Earth it seemed like a betrayal of how nice and good things were... He turned around to look at the assembled Foundation members. "I--"

"We'll figure out a cure," Valeria said, barely a moment later. "We will. We cured Uncle Ben for a whole week... and he's all rocky, we can beat DILF! After we... you know, figure out what it is."

Franklin nodded, and everyone else did a few moments later.

"We've got this," Bentley promised. "I WILL TORTURE THE GROWNUPS UNTIL THEY REVEAL TO US THE SECRETS OF THE DILF!"

"Pretty sure Dad wouldn't want someone tortured for him..." Ian said.

"He just gets like that, sometimes," Franklin said, voice pretending to be a whisper. "It's how he deals with emotions."

"You will tremble before the might of Bentley!"

In spite of himself, Ian smiled. They could take care of this, and if his dad was sick, Ian would take care of Dad, forever, until the day he died, because he owed his dad that much and then some for bringing him here, for giving him two families, a clan, a home... "We're going to do this. Alright, let's make a plan..."

They met up in one of the classrooms to discuss the problem of DILF. Valeria led, because Ian wasn't quite in the mood to be the leader right then, instead he curled up in one of the corners, his knees tucked to his chest, with Tong and Mik flanking him on either side, a head on his shoulder.

The chalkboard was filled with questions for them to solve: 'how do you get DILF?', 'DILF, native to Earth?', 'Steve Rogers, other DILFs?', 'signs/symptoms of DILF - fever, extreme hunger/thirst? diarrhea/nausea?' 'DILF transmission vectors?'

After they had begun the planning phases, it moved quickly into the execution, everyone was assigned an adult to broach the topic of DILF, and several questions to ask. Franklin was assigned the task of reading through other U Weekly magazines to find more examples of DILF, and was also assigned the task of discussing with Darla (who bought the magazines). Ian would talk with Tony and his Dad, Valeria would talk with Dr. Richards, the Moloids were assigned to The Ben and The Jen...

"We'll bring it everyone on this, don't worry, Ian," Val said, giving him another pat on the shoulder. "Maybe it hasn't progressed far? Your dad looks very healthy."

Ian hoped she was right. Far too soon, his wrist pinged, which was Tony or Dad's signal for 'get your ass over here' (Tony's words, not Dad's) and he wished his friends goodbye with a hug each, and they all told him to cheer up, and remember that they could solve anything together.

"Looking a little subdued, kiddo," Tony said when they were walking home.

He noticed that Dad was keeping up with them just fine, and didn't seem thirsty or hungry or anything else particularly symptomatic, but Ian was on the lookout now. Dad seemed a bit distracted, maybe... thoughtful. Maybe he was worrying about the DILF.

"Just thinking," Ian assured him.

"Keep it up, world needs more thinkers."

They stopped in for sushi on the way, and Ian ate his way through way too much sushi, thoughtful, trying to decide what he would do if Dad wasn't alright. Tony had assured him he would always have a place with the Avengers, even after finding out Zola was his dad... so that was safe, but... but _Dad_. He tried to imaging coming all the way from Z, struggling through all of that, only to have dad die of something stupid that a bunch of celebrities got!

"Seriously, glaring a hole through the nigiri."

"I'm just thinking!" Ian snapped.

Tony looked shocked for a moment, as did Dad, and they glanced at each other, doing that weird thing they did where they seemed to have some sort of conversation with their eyes, before they silently went back to their own dinner.

Everyone was more subdued after that, and Ian didn't let himself feel guilty about it. They were the ones lying about his dad being sick. He would have to study harder, so he could learn more medicine. The idea made him feel a little sick, knowing that that would bring him a step closer to being like his blood father, but if he had to do that to save his father, he would. He would do anything for his dad. Anything.

He decided he would need to start with Tony, as much as about dad, he knew that dad would sometimes bend the truth if it hurt... Tony didn't shy away from it, he told it to Ian straight.

After he got home, he took a deep breath, and readied himself to fight Tony, and get the truth out of him any way he could.

*

Tony wasn't sure what exactly had been bothering Ian since they'd gotten home from the Foundation, but it was clear there was something on the kid's mind. He wasn't used to him keeping it to himself, though. If Ian was having a problem, Tony - or Steve - heard about it in short order, but not today.

Thankfully, Ian proved true to form, and later that night, when Ian really should have been heading to bed, he showed up in the garage in a huff.

"Tony." He said Tony's name with a firmness that he wasn't quite used to, it sort of reminded him of Steve, the commanding voice that he sometimes had. It was enough to make him smile, just a little bit. "I need you to be completely honest with me, no lies, no hedging. I need to know the truth."

Woah. Tony found himself coming up short, confused at the level of seriousness in the kid's voice. This was far more than he'd dealt with before, even when Ian was trying to make him promise not to hate him, when he'd revealed Zola was his biological father. "Alright... I... I promise I won't lie."

He even turned around and looked Ian square in the eyes, since Steve had always emphasized that as a way to communicate trustworthiness growing up.

"Does my dad have DILF?"

Tony's mind took a moment to be sure he'd heard Ian correctly, and then he started to laugh, and then he kept laughing, because... Steve? Dad I'd Like to Fuck? Yes, absolutely. Steve was a Grade A DILF. Even knowing it was important to Ian for some reason, Tony couldn't stop laughing.

"Stop it! STOP IT! IT'S NOT FUNNY!" Ian was yelling at him now, tears in his eyes. "HOW CAN YOU LAUGH?!"

That stopped the laughing hard in its tracks, because Ian... well Ian had talked about wanting his dad to get in the dating game again so the idea he was desirable shouldn't have been that traumatic. "Ian... what do you think a DILF is?"

Ian bit his lip, awkward and nervous. "Some sort of disease? This magazine said mom caught it off dad and..."

Humor died in its tracks at that. No wonder Ian had been wound up. "Ian it's not a disease it's... A.I.M.E.E. wouldn't explain it, would she?"

He shook his head. "And we asked Dragon Man and the H.E.R.B.I.E.s and they said there wasn't any cure and... I got scared. I thought you and dad were lying to me. Dad didn't tell me about Zola until I was _twelve_."

"Okay, okay... DILF, it's an acronym, you remember those?" Ian nodded, although Tony knew he didn't get them the way most Earth natives did. "It means... Dad I'd Like to... ... mate with."

"Mate with doesn't start with F," Ian answered, accusing.

"No, but the word that the F is for... means that, and starts with F."

"Ffffff-- ornicate?"

Tony put his head in his hand. "Yes, we'll go with Fornicate. It doesn't mean anything bad, that magazine you were reading is one that talks about celebrities and their personal lives. They're saying that your dad is... more attractive than usual because he has you, he's a dad."

"So... it is a listing to announce my father's status as an eligible and virile mate?"

Tony opened his mouth, closed it again, and then repeated the process twice more, well aware of the fact that he probably looked like a fish. "I mean it's not to _announce_ him, they're just taking note of it." Repeatedly, exactly as Tony had.

"So he's not sick?"

"No."

"And a DILF just means people think he is an attractive mating prospect?"

"Yes."

"Well, that's good, then!"

Tony didn't answer.

"I was so worried that no one would want to be Dad's mate because Sharon didn't want to be my new mom, but you're saying there are lots of people who would consider my father eligible material for a mate?" Ian was way too calm about that, but Tony was glad he was recovering.

"Basically. I mean it's complicated. We've talked about this some. You can't just go to the store and pick up a mate - at least this is what Pepper tells me - it's not something you can just do a certain way every time and it works out the same." Tony wasn't sure he wanted to do this to himself, have this conversation with Ian, about helping Steve find 'a mate' even if he figured Steve wouldn't be hard-pressed to try right now. "How to Phrox pick a mate?"

"You demonstrate your strength as a provider by gifting a female with meat, furs, fruit, artisan works, displaying your neck or adorning your chest with paints..." Ian seemed to be thinking more. "I am unsure how that would work for a human, since the neck is not considered attractive..."

"Depends on how you work it," Tony answered, but then shut himself up on the topic. "I mean that's not unlike how we do things, but... it's not as simple as finding someone who wants to mate with your dad, lots of people would want to mate with your dad."

Ian nodded to himself, mulling something over. "Would you mate with Dad?"

Tony's brain spiked to high alert in a manner of nanoseconds. After the panic dulled, slightly, and Tony managed to avoid the first response of 'gladly!', he made a show of thinking it over. "Your dad's an attractive guy."

"Have you had boy mates before?"

There was no good reason this had suddenly become an inquiry on Tony's orientation and mating habits, so he sighed. "Yeah, when I was younger. Not as much lately."

There were a lot of reasons for that, being in the limelight more, it just being easier to be with a woman; working at S.H.I.E.L.D. and in the Department of Defense at various times had meant it was just better for business for him to tamp that side down. It wasn't some great loss, he loved women as much as - if not more - than men. Steve... Steve would have been a special case, though. Tony had loved Steve, in one form or another, for years. He'd loved other people, been with them, been completely committed to them, but he did love Steve.

"Look," Tony said, turning to Ian and giving him his best serious look right in the eyes. "I understand why you asked, you like spending time with me, but I don't have to be your dad's mate for me to want to spend time with you. I will _always_ look out for you. I will _always_ protect you. You are in my clan until the end of time. Nothing in the world will keep me from taking care of you."

Ian looked up at him, and his eyes were wet at the corners. "Okay."

"Someday your dad is going to find someone to be his mate who will love you just as much as he does, and you three will be... disgustingly adorable." And Tony wouldn't have to worry about Ian quite as much, because there would be someone else there for Ian who was more important, and that would be fine, really it would. "But I have been, and will always be, your Chieftain."

Ian giggled. "That's from Star Trek. _You're_ not dying, are you?"

"Nope. Now... feeling better?" He nodded. "Not feeling the need to set me up with your dad?" Ian shook his head. "Need anything else?" Ian held his arms open, and so Tony leaned in and hugged him, and then ruffled his hair.

"I should probably tell the Foundation to call off the search for a cure for DILF..."

Tony laughed again. "Sorry, kiddo, your dad's a DILF for life."

Ian headed off, and came back, flinging the bearskin over Tony's shoulders and then hugging him again, before he headed off to bed.

"Tony?"

He glanced over to find Steve standing in the doorway. He looked the same as always, jeans and a dark blue t-shirt... gorgeous.

"Ian alright?"

"Yeah, yeah... he was just having a bit of a freakout because he thought you were sick."

Tony turned towards him, and snuggled down into his blanket. Steve had an eyebrow arched at him.

"There was a fundamental misunderstanding of idiomatic communication."

Steve didn't seem to be willing to accept the hedge.

"He found out you were a DILF, he thought it was an illness."

After a moment to let it sink in, Steve chuckled. "And _that_ was why he was upset at dinner?"

"He thought we were lying to him about being sick, A.I.M.E.E. restricted his access to the content, because _yes_ , I gave her a sex filter, and at least a minimal profanity filter, so it dinged on those..." Tony shrugged.

"So you had to explain what a DILF was?"

"Dad I'd Like to Fornicate with."

" _Fornicate_?!"

"His word, not mine."

"I'm sorry," Steve said, but he was still chuckling. "Why the hell does he keep coming to you for sex questions anyway?"

"Do you even have to ask that question?" Tony asked, taking advantage of his position to sprawl a little. "Do you want to talk about sex with your dad or your cool uncle Tony? Think about this: when he has his first crush on someone other than Natalie Portman? He is going to come to me and he's going to go..." Tony made his best impression of a wistful sigh. "'You should see the way her hair reflects the sun, Tony~' and then I will vomit."

"Yeah..." Steve said, considering something, smiling over at Tony. "Yeah I guess he will."

Tony wasn't exactly certain what was going through Steve's mind, but the man was... happy, probably happier than Tony had seen him in a while, and that was good to see. As much as Steve was comfortable with Earth, things were different; much as the man loved Ian, Earth was strange... and so Tony gave him a smile in response. This Steve - his friend, the one who he could spend easy, comfortable time with, could relax with, could enjoy the company of, and just bask in the joy of that friendship - Tony could handle him, could adore him from afar.

Something happened. Tony didn't know what. A moment later Steve was in his space, a hand cupped around the back of Tony's neck, kissing him. He was fairly proud that several decades of reflexes had him moving into the kiss without a second thought, mouth relaxing under Steve's lips, pushing forward to meet him. Steve was surprisingly ungreedy about it, firm, but not demanding, but when Tony reached out and tried to draw Steve in more, he abruptly broke the kiss and took several steps back.

"I'm sorry," Steve said. "I shouldn't have done that."

Tony opened his mouth to say no, no Steve absolutely should have done that, he should do it again, he should consider Tony at his disposal when it came to kissing, but Steve continued to ramble stopping the words dead in Tony's throat.

"That was a mistake," Steve said, more firmly this time.

Oh. Tony would have done almost anything for Steve, but even he wasn't willing to descend into the territory of a _mistake_ from the onset. "Okay, yeah... sorry."

"No I-- it won't happen again."

"Sure."

"Thank you for..." Steve shook his head, took another step back. "Thank you for being there for Ian."

"Sure," Tony repeated, not sure what to say beyond that.

Steve retreated from the room, leaving Tony to wonder what the hell had just happened. He'd always assumed if he and Steve had ever gotten anywhere near that, it would have lasted either a few hours (for Steve to come to his senses), a few days (for their first argument where it was clear they wouldn't agree on anything important), a few months (their first argument where there were lives on the line, and danger, where their tempers flared the highest), and in his more hopeful moments, two years (the approximate amount of time it would take Tony to accidentally, or intentionally, break Steve's trust in him completely. Again)

Tony didn't think much of his odds of a long-lasting relationship with Steve, but he'd sort of expected that he would at least get to the one minute mark. He accepted that he wouldn't get any work done that night, and retreated to his bedroom, scrubbed and climbed into bed, hoping Ian wouldn't have a bad night because he was pretty sure he couldn't handle the kid right now.

He could still taste Steve on his lips, even though he'd tried to scrub the taste away, he could still feel the press of solid muscle against his torso, and damn if he hadn't wanted it to let Steve have him right against the damn desk.

It was probably for the best, then, not even twelve years of distance could make Steve think that was actually a good idea. Tony couldn't even disagree with him.

~6~

Steve left the Tower early enough in the day that he probably could avoid Tony. He still couldn't believe how impulsive he'd been, how willing to... his affection for Tony had been growing over the last weeks, through his son bonding with Tony and Tony allowing him to, and making a place in his life for Ian. He'd always found Tony attractive, even years ago, but it was never something he had entertained, and he _knew_ in the years since they had met things had become complicated, but the years in Z seemed to have simplified a few things.

He couldn't even consider someone who wouldn't carve out a place for Ian in his life, and he couldn't help but see Tony slipping in that role, without even seeming to see how much he had done so.

It wasn't his first preference, for a number of reasons, but he headed to S.H.I.E.L.D. and set himself up to speak to one of the counselors there. He reminded himself, repeatedly, that he could not be completely honest, but that didn't mean he couldn't explain enough.

"Commander Rogers?" Abby, the counselor who was available, called him in, and Steve took a seat on the available couch. Ian did this three times a week, he could do it once. "What can I help you with?"

"I---" He chuckled. "I'm sure you know at least the basics?"

Abby nodded.

"I don't really want to talk about that today," he admitted. He'd been dealing with his own feelings slowly, mostly on his own, as he tried to put away everything he'd gone through. Sam was helping, even he visits with Sue were helping. That wasn't something he would have thought of, years ago, as comforting, but somehow sitting on the roof of the Baxter Building talking about children was more soothing now. "It's something I'm working through, and I know I need to work on it more, but he problem today... I kissed someone, and I thought... of Ian's mother, of my son's mother."

"How so?"

Steve knew this would take maneuvering, to explain and yet avoid something that might make Ian's lack of blood relationship clear. "Not... guilt, she's been dead for over a decade, but... I had Arnim Zola's consciousness in my mind, he was with Mary for years. Or, more correctly, Mary was unable to leave him for years. He delighted in reminding me of what he had done to her, to force me to relive his memory in my dreams."

"You remember his experiences?" Steve nodded. "Still?"

"Yes. Mary was... years ago she was more herself, strong, brave, defiant, and those things carried through the years but... Zola tried... I was reminded of all of that, in that moment, when I was caught up in my desire for another person I thought... of him with her."

"I read your report," Abby said, a moment later. No doubt they all had. "You said that Ian's mother died when he was born? Were you with anyone else after that?"

"No."

"So for... twelve or so years, your only experience with intimacy was Zola using your former lover, to taunt you?"

"Yes." He hadn't wanted to talk about it directly, but he found himself talking about Mary more than himself, about the parts of her that he remembered from Zola, about the nice parts, the parts of her that somehow managed to shine through even after years. Those were the things he cherished, that were impossible to think about with Zola hammering his mind.

"Have you talked with your partner about this?"

Steve shook his head. Before yesterday it had seemed one more thing he would be putting on Tony that he didn't deserve to bear. He had put so much time in with Ian it seemed unfair to ask for more. "No it... seemed like too much to put on them."

He and Abby went back and forth for about an hour, and Steve would have been lying if he said it didn't provide some clarity. Just as a part of Steve's attraction to Tony now was his ease with Ian, if they could perhaps have something between them, it would need to be based on Tony understanding about Mary, about Zola, and about everything that was still tangled up in Steve's mind from Z. Part of that seemed unfair to Tony - _all_ of it seemed unfair to Tony - he had already put so much into understanding Ian, into making sure that Steve's occasional blindness didn't hurt Ian...

Yet he knew he needed to talk this out with Tony, and the more he thought on it the worse he felt about how he'd left it yesterday. He wasn't even certain if Tony... reciprocated at all, he'd seemed to be alright with the kissing, but he'd seemed almost shell-shocked after the kiss itself.

He found Tony in his workshop just before noon, and Steve made sure to swing by the kitchen and bring down a sandwich, some coffee, and an apple, since he knew Tony would have either forgotten breakfast or not yet broken for lunch, or both.

"Tony?"

Tony glanced over his shoulder before he went back to his monitors. "Yeah?"

"Ian at the tutors?"

"Yup, until one thirty."

"I--" He came in and set the sandwich down at Tony's elbow, away from the danger zone of work. "I'm sorry about yesterday."

"Apology accepted," Tony answered, immediately, _too_ immediately.

Steve puzzled over the side of Tony's face for a moment, Tony had gone back to his work... He knew this pose, this response, Tony was either deeply engrossed in his work or deliberately avoiding Steve's attempts to open up a conversation. It left him unsure if he should press, or if he should take this as Tony's answer to if he might be interested in more.

"I wanted to kiss you."

Tony froze. Tony was so naturally agile, so frenetic, that the stillness was easy to spot, even after so many years apart.

"I still want to kiss you," he added, since he wasn't sure that had been clear yesterday.

That got Tony to turn around, and his face was almost frozen, not even the bland pleasantness that he knew Tony managed for investors and boards of directors and journalists, just... blank.

"I'm just not ready for..."

Tony's jaw tensed. Steve stopped.

"I'm doing this all wrong," Steve said.

"Break it down for me, then," Tony answered, for the first time since Steve had come in. "I thought you were pretty clear yesterday, but I'm not going to be a fling to help you get back on the horse, Steve."

Steve gaped, wondering where the hell Tony had gotten that idea, and then realized that perhaps that was exactly what it had looked like on the outside, with Steve unable to explain exactly what was going on in his head. "No... no I... _No_. I wouldn't do that to you, I wouldn't do that to Ian. If you were interested it would be a commitment."

"Sooo..." He glanced down at the sandwich, of all things, and then back up to Steve. "What, exactly, aren't you ready for?"

He was an adult, they could have this conversation. He'd said similar words to Abby not an hour ago, and Tony needed to know. "Sex. It's been a long time, and... Mary, Zola... It's all in my head. I'm still trying to get to a point where I can start to move forward."

"You want to be... mates?" Tony didn't even smirk at the word, even though he sometimes did when Steve or Ian said it. "Is that it?"

"Yes. Yes. I... I've always been attracted to you, Tony, but time gave me some clarity, reminded me of what's important, gave me new things that I need to care about more than anything else." Steve stepped forward, reached out enough to brush a thumb against Tony's neck, which he helpfully tilted to the side.

"So you're hot for me because I'm good with your son?" Tony asked, although he had a bit of a smile there, now, it looked as though it was also an honest question.

"Can't that be part of it without it being the whole reason? I'm a single father, I can't date someone who _doesn't_ like him." After glancing up at Tony, seeing his eyes and deciding that he was, in fact, interested. Steve leaned in and pressed a kiss against his throat. "They also have to know about Zola, and..."

"So not what I want to talk about right now," Tony answered. He wrapped a hand around Steve's neck and dragged him in for a kiss.

It was _more_ than their last kiss, hard, hot and wet as Tony opened his mouth into Steve's and Steve answered in kind. The two of them fumbled at each other, Tony's hands stayed against his throat, on his back, bunching up his shirt and clinging. Steve's hands went to Tony's shoulders, then his back, then his hips, each time he pulled them away, almost feeling burned.

The third time he did it, Tony eased away and frowned.

Steve didn't want their kiss to end, not like that, so he steeled himself, took a deep breath, and put his hands against Tony's cheeks, pulling him in and... that worked, he could do that, and when Tony's hands looped around his waist, that worked too. They fumbled against the desk, and after a few moments of panic he finally just... settled, and could enjoy.

Tony felt wonderful against him, hard, warm, and eager, and it felt so right... like he finally fit here again. He'd been home for weeks, but for the first time since he'd gotten here he felt... _attached_ , connected again. When he pulled away this time, Tony was looking up at him with a sweet, dopey sort of expression on his face that never failed to melt Steve.

"You alright?" Tony asked, starting to come out of his daze.

"Yeah." Steve stepped away. "I... It's going to take me some time, but... I think this could work."

Tony smiled, but he gave a soft little snort as well. "Hey, as long as you remember I'm constitutionally incapable of going more than a year without disappointing you, I think we'll be fine."

"Just... be there for me, for _us_ , Tony." Steve settled his hands on Tony's chest, leaving the pressure light. "We can handle anything else."

"I can do that." Tony glanced over his shoulder. "So, the sandwich, is that going to be a thing? Ian says food is a serious Phrox courtship thing."

Steve felt his cheeks heat.

Tony picked up the sandwich and took a bite. "I'm suddenly reminded that you brought me food the day you woke up. Were you flirting with me, Steven?"

"Bribing you," Steve answered. " _Now_ I'm flirting with you."

"Neck?" Tony asked, tilting it.

Steve leaned in and kissed him there. Tony couldn't know; Ian had obviously told him about that, but the... _trust_ involved, the exposure, the openness was what made it so appealing. When your life was on the line every day, it made the person watching your back all the more appealing. "I'm not sure how I feel about my son teaching you Phrox mating tips."

"Whatever works." Tony gave him a little smirk. "Besides, need to cut off any truly bizarre practices before your son discovers mating in earnest."

"I don't even want to think about that."

"He's twelve."

"Don't want to hear it."

"I'm sure you could think of some way to shut me up."

Steve could think of one, and he leaned back in, hand against Tony's neck, kissing softly. Tony was smiling against his mouth. After years of thinking of home, no matter how often he told Ian he tried not to, after missing everything he had left behind even if he pretended he didn't, he felt as though he might finally be able to fit back in, start to heal with someone who might understand everything... and someone who loved his son enough that Steve would never worry about Ian feeling unloved.

He knew why Tony was nervous, he remembered their fights, their arguments, and all of the times they couldn't see eye to eye, this was the man who, when Steve had been unable to be there for Ian, had thought nothing of taking care of his son. And when he had discovered that Ian was _not_ his blood... he had continued to love him anyway.

*

Since the DILF crisis, Ian had noticed that Dad had been more relaxed, and maybe a little happier. Dad had started to see a counselor - a few weeks later than Ian thought he should have if he was going to be a role model, but Ian knew Dad sometimes liked to keep things to himself, so it wasn't surprising. He also started to join him and Tony for movies and TV more, with Dad and Tony sitting close enough so that Ian could nestle between them and hog all of the popcorn.

After the movie, he and Dad got settled up in their rooms, and Ian read Dad a chapter of Fellowship while Dad sat beside him. When they finished the chapter, Dad sent him to get cleaned up for bed.

"Are you gonna be an Avenger again, soon?"

"Maybe," Dad said, standing beside Ian while they brushed teeth. "If there were something big, I'd be out in the field tomorrow. We would need all hands, but with things being a little more quiet, I can take the time."

"I don't mind," Ian said, as he spit and then started to scrub his face. "You still want to be, though, right?"

"I do."

"And you want a mate?"

Dad didn't answer right away. "I've been thinking about that more lately. It's not just about what I want, though. I know you say you want me to have a mate, but that doesn't mean you would be happy with... the same things I would. So, we need to decide what would make us both happy."

"Tony says you can't just go pick up a mate at the store," Ian said, trying to sound like he was wise and knew what he was talking about.

"Did he now?"

"Mmmmhmm... I want..." Ian tried to think. He always said that he wanted someone to make Dad happy, but it was obvious that Dad was talking about things to make _Ian_ happy. "I want to stay here, in the Tower, with the Avengers."

He didn't want to lose seeing Tony, and the other Avengers, he wanted to fight with them, learn with them, train with them, and watch movies and eat popcorn with them.

"I need to live close to the Baxter Building, because there's where I'm gonna go to school soon, so we're close to that, and here I can learn about cooking and knife fighting, and Avenging, and Earth culture. You can be close to work..."

Dad chuckled. "What's really on your mind?"

"I--" He bit his lip. "The Avengers are our clan, and Tony is our chieftain and..." Ian was worried if Dad found someone else, that they wouldn't be as close anymore, that they would have a new clan, or... "I still want to watch movies and eat popcorn with Tony."

"And you're worried if I found a mate, you and Tony wouldn't spend as much time together?"

Ian nodded. He'd been so focused on Dad getting better, on taking care of him, on making sure that Dad was happy, that he didn't realize he would be sad if he didn't see Tony and Natasha and Sam and Bobby and Jarvis as often as he did. He didn't want Dad to be unhappy, he wanted him to have someone.

"What if Tony was my mate?" Dad asked, sounding just a little funny, but it was an honest question, not the teasing sort.

"Well..." Ian actually thought about it for a moment. "That would be the best, I think. We would move in with him, then, though, not him here. Tony has a much better fireplace, even though ours is nice."

Dad chuckled.

"We would need to plan," Ian said. "You have already demonstrated your prowess as a provider. I have demonstrated _my_ prowess as a hunter as well. Tony has already agreed you are a DILF, and thus desirable for mating, and you are already well acquainted. So..." He put down his toothbrush, and then grabbed Dad by the shirt, pulling him out into their common room so that Ian could continue his planning. "You must demonstrate your intentions more clearly. Jarvis cooks for him too much, so you should do that, bring him food, and flowers. I do not understand why plants that are strictly ornamental that create an odor that would place you at a disadvantage during a hunt mean courtship, but they do..."

Ian started to pace, and dad was standing in the center of the room, arms crossed over his chest, smiling.

"The Jen and Aunt Carol both agree that scruffy is a surprisingly good look for you, so you should do that. You need to let him talk more, but maintain eye contact and stay engaged, that way he will know you are interested in his things..."

"Where are you getting all of this?" Dad finally asked, still smiling.

"Clint, Tony, and Darla."

"Alright, alright, Ian... shhhh."

Ian hushed, even though he thought Dad was abusing the fact that Ian would hush just by being asked. It was very important that Dad do this right, because Ian would like Tony to be Dad's mate, so the last thing he needed was Dad not taking this seriously. He set his jaw, and looked up at dad.

"Ian, Tony and I... we're... we've decided to try dating."

"Dating is how you decide if you would like someone to be mates," Ian said. "So... so you and Tony are already trying to be mates?"

"Yes."

Ian whooped, and jumped up to throw his arms around Dad's neck and cling there while Dad helpfully swung him around. He could barely breathe, with Dad hugging him so close, but it didn't matter because this would be the _best_ , Dad could have a mate, Tony could be his dad's mate, and his Chieftain, and they could be a family and everything would be good and... "Why are we here?"

Dad loosened his grip and then frowned. "What?"

"Well, if you're going to be mates with Tony, why aren't we at his place?"

"We're taking it slow."

Ian frowned up at dad again. "No, no, no, no." Ian then wriggled out of Dad's grip and went to Dad's room, pulling out clothing for the day. "See, that's not alright. This is _Tony_ , he is also a very desirable mate, U Weekly says."

He returned to the living room, and shoved clothes into Dad's arms.

"And _Tony_ wants a mate who will understand his work, and want him to still be an Avenger, so it is very important you prove yourself at that." Ian then went into his room and grabbed his own clothes. He stopped in the bathroom to get toothbrushes. "I think he gets sad when he's alone. So, we'll make him not alone!" Ian then gently shoved Dad out of the door of the room, and he went.

"Ian, I'm pretty sure Tony will be alright for a few nights, a few weeks, even. We don't need to be there all of the time." Dad did let himself be herded into the elevator, though, and Ian pushed the button for Tony's floor. "Courtship doesn't need to always be a particular way. Tony and I are still trying to sort out how we would work as mates and as teammates."

"All the more reason to talk about it now."

Dad still wasn't really protesting though, when Ian thumbed open Tony's rooms and foisted dad inside.

"Hey, Steve, you... Ian?" Tony looked up from his tablet on the couch. "Are you alright?"

"I won't interrupt," Ian said, before he got Dad to sit down on the couch. "Goodnight. I can't hear anything!" Ian then retreated to the room he'd stayed in before dad woke up.

Tony was laughing, Dad was laughing, which was good, but a few moments later someone knocked on the door and Tony came in, followed by dad. "You're alright with this?" Tony asked.

"Yup, this is good. You can be dad's mate."

"Alright," Tony said, before glancing over to Dad, and then sitting down next to Ian. "Now, if you do have a hard time tonight, you can come over just... knock first, or have Aimee call me, got it?"

"Got it." Ian put his arms around Tony's shoulders and then kissed him on the cheek. "You... want to be _mates_ , right? Not just mating?"

"Oh yeah, kiddo. Yeah." Tony pulled him in and kissed him on the temple. "Now, go to sleep. You have Future Foundation school tomorrow."

"Right!" He was going to start going there one day a week, as his tutor was slowly less needed. Ian's reading was getting a bit better, and his math and science was good enough for the younger kids at the Foundation.

"Don't let me catch you praying for us to have a fruitful union or something, though. That would be weird."

"Dajur looks after all unions," Ian explained.

"As long as they don't have to be fruitful."

Ian giggled at him. "Goodnight, Tony."

He thought about making them an icon - that's what they were called on Earth - but instead he curled up into bed and decided that he really did like the idea of Dad and Tony being together, being mates. Tony had been very clear, over and over, that mating was complicated, and that even good intentions couldn't make a relationship work, but he _did_ pray to Dajur that night that Tony and Dad would work out.

In the morning, Dad woke him up and they exercised and ran, and fought until just after dawn, before Dad took them back to their room and the two of them went to their bathrooms to shower.

"So..." Dad was back in his day clothes, and Ian was dressed to go to the Foundation. "Tony and I dating is a secret right now. We want to be sure it's right before we tell anyone, and that includes your friends, and the other Avengers, alright?"

Ian nodded. "I won't tell. I can keep a secret."

"It won't be forever, just until Tony and I get things sorted out."

Spending time with his friends was great, and even though he wasn't sure he'd ever be as smart as Valeria or Bentley, he was definitely catching up with some of the others. Tony had said he would likely grow into his genius.

"You're super happy," Bentley said, over lunch, as they were all eating in the kitchen. "It's weird."

"Am I?" He shrugged. "I guess I'm just happy to be here."

"Captain America happiness cooties, ew."

Val stuck her tongue out at both of them. 

They learned about scientific ethics, and after they were done for the day, Ian stayed to hang out for an hour before he finally started to go home around four, walking from the Baxter Building to Avengers Tower. Tony had promised that the three of them would go out to dinner tonight, and it would be the first time since they'd started dating.

Ian was worried about ruining the mood - apparently there were moods involved - but Tony and Dad both said he had to come, so he would and...

"Ian?" He glanced to see a woman standing near him on the street.

"Miss-- Melody?" He recognized her, she'd dated Tony once; she and Tony had gone on a date when Dad was in his coma right after Z. Ian had accidentally interrupted them when they were going to mate. "Hi."

She lived somewhere in New York, so... Ian guessed they'd run into each other sometimes. He didn't really want her running into Tony, just in case he decided she was better than dad. No one _should_ decide that, Tony would be dumb if he did, but Ian would rather not take any chances.

"Out for a walk?"

"Just from the Baxter to the Avengers." Ian pointed to Avengers Tower, sitting just a few blocks away.

"Dad at home?" She asked, and Ian frowned, for the first time getting a sort of... weird... something about her.

"Yeah? I mean I'm twelve, I can walk a few blocks in the Midt--"

He was fast, super-fast, even, but Earth was definitely making him a little slow. She got him right in the arm, stabbed with some sort of pointy thing, a needle. She had his wrists in hers a moment later.

"[Alarm]!" He said, in Phroxi, words already sluggish. "[Stealing]!"

She had a hand slapped over his mouth after that, and then the shield-bracer at his wrist made a shocking jolt, things went fuzzy, and dark, and Ian had a moment to be _super_ mad at himself for being so slow.

If his knees hit the ground, he didn't feel it.

*

Tony was surprised to realize that his and Steve's strange courtship entered its second week, he was getting perilously close to beating his second worst-case-scenario on the 'if he and Steve ever tried a relationship' front. He should probably get Steve a gift. It helped that things had been relatively smooth sailing on the Avenging front. Steve was getting back in shape, running drills with all of the Avengers, and generally was just as well integrated as he'd been before his three month (or twelve year) hiatus from Avenging.

Things were... pretty damn good.

"When's Ian getting home?" Steve asked, sliding up besides him and completely trashing Tony's productivity.

"Uhhh... Sometime in the next fifteen to forty-five. I worked in some slush time because your son is a social butterfly." Tony didn't bother to pull up the Ian tracking, Steve was just being himself.

"I think I'm glad you had already introduced him to the concept of school and friends before I woke up. I'm not sure I was ready to handle it."

Tony shrugged. "Is there a Z equivalent to your son's first day of kindergarten?"

"First hunt I sent him out on without me," Steve answered, and then he curled an arm around Tony's waist and put his chin on Tony's shoulder.

Previously plumbed depths of unproductivity were discovered by the gesture, and Tony tilted his head in to press his nose against Steve's ear. "He did fine?"

Steve chuckled. "No, he gashed open his shoulder, it was a complete mess."

"Adorable."

"So I understand letting go, I just--"

One of the Avengers alarms started blaring, and Steve jerked back, glancing at the screens, waiting for Tony to let him know what was going on.

"Shit." Tony glanced over the readings again, double checking. "Suit up, Cap."

"Big?"

"Ian." Tony pressed a button to pull the audio feed from the arm bracer, which the computer helpfully translated the codewords: Alarm, stealing. "Kidnapping."

"Why is he yelling in Phroxi?" Steve was already over by the changing station, pulling off his shirt and tugging on his armor.

"Because it's second nature, but I needed words he wasn't going to say in everyday conversation." Tony punched a few more buttons to get a read on Ian's location, and then sighed. "They pulsed his monitor, his shield won't be functional."

"That means you can't find him?" Steve asked, halfway into his pants now. "Tony, if my son..."

"His _shield_ will be offline, which he will know. The tracking monitor goes into an evasive pattern that will keep them from realizing it's still transmitting. He's just transmitting in pings, not a constant stream." Tony backed away from the console and started to suit up as well. "Do you really think I sent your son out into the wild without five backup plans? We've got thi--"

Another alarm started blaring.

"Oh for fuck's sa..." Multiple energy readings, portal energy... "Shit. Some sort of interdimensional breach. Gamma signatures, biomasses, robo... Zola," Tony whispered. "This is Zola, has to be."

"You," Tony said. "Go to a Quinjet, I'll get you the readings coming from Ian's arm tracker. Find him, break him out, take... Sam? Sam and Carol."

"You'll need Carol for the hulks," Steve answered. "There's at least four gamma irradiated clones of me coming through those portals. You'll need Carol, you'll need Hyperion, you'll need Banner. I'll take Smasher."

"Gamma irradiated Captain Americas..." Tony didn't want to know what that looked like. "You take your team, we'll contain this. Do they have those... consciousness guns?"

"Very likely."

"Ok, go, rescue your son, we've got the interdimensional invasion thing locked. I'll even call in Reed." He took a split second to come to a decision, before he reached out and tugged Steve's head towards him, kissing him square on the lips. "Go."

Steve started to run for the Quinjets, making his calls as he ran. Tony opened up the escape hatch to his lab.

"Listen up, Avengers, priority one is an interdimensional rift that's centering around Central Park. We've got reason to believe this is an invasion from Zola and Dimension Z." Tony continued to rattle off details: Caphulks, mutates, consciousness infection guns. "If you are a baseline normal with minimal armor, do _not_ engage the mutates. They have guns that will infect you with the Zola virus. Banner, I'd love the Hulk, but we need antidotes more, get some synthesizing set up before you join us."

"Where's Steve?" The question came over the line from Carol.

"Rescuing his son from a very timely kidnapping. Until further notice we are assuming these two things are connected."

"What the hell is _with_ Zola?" Clint asked, probably also gearing up. "Dude, your mortal enemy had a son, you're going to have to move on someday."

"To be fair," Natasha answered, "I'm pretty sure it has something to do with the fact that Steve seduced his babymama."

"Chatter!" Tony growled into his suit mic, he really didn't need to hear this right now.

"I'm in position." Clint's pinged his locational tracker, somewhere on a building with a good view of the invasion zone. "Civilians are doing the running and screaming thing, looks like the invading forces don't have much target for the brain wammy devices. Got two Caphulks already out, _love_ the shields..."

Tony took a gentle arc out of the Tower and headed towards the park.

"Got... a girl."

"Girl?" Tony asked. "Status, I should be able to make an extraction."

"No, she's towards the front end of the invading force."

"What does she look like?" Tony targeted her, pulled up details on the HUD. There wasn't anything obvious about her, but Tony was now concerned.

"Seriously? Picking up interdimensional women now?"

Tony swooped in, grabbing the girl around the waist and extracting her to a few yards down the Park from the portal. "Jet?" He asked, looking at the girl, dark hair, sixteen maybe eighteen years old, pretty. "Jet Black?"

"You will address me as Her Imperial Majesty Jet Black Zola." She also answered him with a sound kick to the stomach, sending him halfway across the width of the park before he slapped hard against a tree, taking it down but finally getting his momentum back.

"Damn."

Tony rolled his eyes at Clint. Still, Tony was confused, Ian had said that his sister was dead. He didn't know how, exactly, he knew that, but here she was, Ian's sister, alive and kicking. He charged back at her, his HUD unable to keep up with her movements as he did; he was able to stay ahead of the kicks, mostly by staying out of her range. He jerked away, trying to keep her out of the fray. Behind her, Tony saw the Avengers engaging with the invading force.

"Come on," he said. "You have a brother, right? Ian?"

"My brother's name was Leopold!" She shouted back at him. "He was slaughtered by Captain America, a coward striking from the shadows."

Right, Tony wasn't sure why he thought that Jet would, you know, be sane, or have full possession of the facts. "Your brother is alive."

"LIAR!" A burst of speed, outside of what Tony had calculated as possible, came from Jet and she slammed a fist against his stomach again.

This time he was ready for it, and was able to keep himself pointed towards her, mostly. "I saw him this morning," Tony continued. "I gave him a hug before he went to school."

"Captain America kidnapped my brother and killed me!"

Tony's life was so weird. "Alright, look, I realize that I don't exactly _have_ your brother here, but we're working on it, and really I don't think he'd be too into this whole 'trying to take over the world' thing. Captain America's not really into that."

"Do you think I give a damn about _Captain America_ and his fascist dominion over this blue-green orb?!" She yelled at him, charging up to him again, this time knocking him right into one of the Caphulks, which started to grind a sawblade into his chest.

Tony struggled against the blade, finally getting a repulsor free enough to blast the thing in the face and power off towards Jet again. Steve was way better at this whole 'seducing the villains away from evil' thing, Tony didn't even know why he bothered, way too much work.

"Fascist dominion?" Clint asked from somewhere over Tony's head. "Wow."

"Can it, Barton," Tony snapped back over the team channel. "I'm doing my best here."

He settled back in, wondering if he could actually take her. The suit had been taking readings of Jet. She was incredibly fast, agile, and probably even more dangerous in a fight than Ian. This must be those 'omnisenses' that Ian hadn't developed yet.

"Alright, look," Tony took another run at her, keeping his distance again, preparing to get beat again. "Zola lied to you. Your brother is alive. He's safe--" Slight lie-- "and we take care of him. You don't have to do this, Steve told me how you helped him escape."

"My previous version was weak."

Well, that answered the question of how she’d gotten here. "Your previous version loved her brother!"

She came after Tony again, and the suit struggled to compensate, doing most of the dodging in real time, barely keeping himself away from her fists. He used a blast to keep her back, tried to give himself some distance. The fighting was still going on to his left, now, no calls for serious injuries, and he could see the Hulk in play.

"Barton, what's our Banner juice status?"

"Everyone with no armor is inoculated. I've tagged at least two dozen potential infected civilians, we'll need to round them up afterwards."

"Just because Steve survived a decade with that thing in his chest doesn't mean we have that long with a baseline human," Tony protested. "Break someone off to round them off now. Jessica?"

"If you're breaking me off--" Jessica started.

"No, why the hell would I send someone with persuasive abilities after people I want quarantine in the Tower?" Tony answered.

Too much time away from the battle, Jet hit him in the head this time, sending his head rattling as he flew backwards.

"On it."

"What if your brother is alive?" Tony asked, head back in the game. "What if your father lied to you? Your brother is well, safe, and happy. Did Zola let you love him? Did Zola tell you to mourn him?"

"I did not need to be _instructed_ by my God!" Jet screamed at him. "I revere him as my brother who died to cleanse us of all weakness!"

He took himself into hand-to-hand zone, hitting her harder as she didn't even seem to take the damage. He managed to drive her into the ground, armor heavy enough to pin her, for now. "Tell me what would you do if he was alive!"

"A lie!"

Her legs grabbed around the neck of his armor and flung him away, again.

"Damn it, Steve, hurry."

He wasn't sure how much more of this beating he could take. Jet was faster than any human he'd ever fought, except maybe Mallon, and he was aware of the fact that he had been unable to stop Mallon without a repulsor blast to the face, taking off the man's head. He would _not_ do that to Ian. Weird brainwashed clone or not, this was Ian's sister. If he could save her, he would.

~7~

The first ping to Ian's location tracker put him out to sea, on a boat maybe, Steve wasn't sure, but the Quinjet headed out while Steve pulled on a parachute. Sam checked his wings. Izzy was just going to drop down.

"We have unknown hostiles who have kidnapped my son," he told them both as they got closer to the potential drop zone. "AIM, and maybe Zola, are interested in him, S.H.I.E.L.D. too." He gave Sam a meaningful glance, but his friend didn't say anything. "Assume the worst."

"Steve?" Sam came up and put a hand on his shoulder. "You going to be alright?"

"I raided the Fortress of Zolandia to save my son. I boat isn't going to be any problem."

They had the boat in their sights. They hadn't had a ping in over a minute. Steve took a deep breath, calm, had to stay calm.

Sam put a hand on his shoulder. "Take it easy."

"He's my _son_ ," Steve said, teeth gritted. "The last time Zola had him in his clutches, he tried to beat me to death after being brainwashed. There's no taking it easy until he's back in my arms."

The radar sonar sound came through the entire cabin. "Target confirmed!" Izzy shouted. "There's your boy."

"Go." Sam gave him a gentle push, and Steve hopped the moment the wind was right. Sam followed after him.

Izzy would be right behind them as soon as she had the plane on autopilot, waiting for their pickup. Sam landed first, and the goons - AIM - started to pour out. Steve got to work after that, blocking, dodging, fighting his way through the packed together troops, Sam just a pace behind him. It took all of his control not to just kill the men outright. He had far too much time spent in Z, in _combat_ , where a kill was required to keep living, here they could be arrested, even if they had kidnapped his son.

Get his son, keep him from harm, there was nothing else more important. He punched and shield slammed his way through the thick of it, dodging behind the shield when they brought out guns, and then pressing forward in the moments it took them to reload.

"Izzy, got any updates from the tracker?"

"None yet," she replied, beating her way through the remains and their tails. "My guess is down."

"Assume he's a hostage," Steve said, carefully picking his way into the door to below. "Fan out, Sam up front. Radio as soon as you make contact."

He made it only about halfway to the rear of the boat when Sam came over the radio. "He's fine, up front."

It took all of his self control not to turn and charge to the front of the boat, instead he carefully picked his way back, making sure his retreat was clear before he found Ian, standing in what must have been the Captain's cabin, glowering down at a woman - pretty, dark hair - and two men in AIM suits.

"You are under so many arrests!" Ian said. "Kid-stealing, anti-Avengering... SO many arrests."

Steve laughed. He couldn't help it. "Ian."

"Dad!" He ran up and hugged him around the waist. "I captured them! Who says I can't Avenge a bit?"

"Tony said your shield should be shorted out."

Ian made a dismissive sound - 'psht', maybe - and waved a hand. "Like that would have stopped you. I used my fists. They didn't want to hurt me because they were kidnapping me to take to Zola after he invaded New York. Wait... is Zola invading New York?! Why are you here? I would have been able to figure out how to get back home. I could just go west until I hit America."

Sam laughed, Izzy laughed. Steve just squeezed his son closer. "You silly little boy. Wanna help us clear out the boat so Izzy can take it back to shore and get these folks under arrest?"

Despite Ian's protests that they should get back to New York, ASAP, they did make sure that Izzy would be safe to take the boat home before he called down the Quinjet to hover and Ian made his way up the ladder while Steve held it steady.

"Your son is one crazy son of a bitch," Sam said.

"HEY!" Ian shouted from overhead. "That's my mom you're talking about."

"Up," Steve said, before following after Sam and starting them back to New York.

"What's the situation?" Ian asked, plunking himself back beside Steve as they flew.

"Mutates, Captains, probably Zola, but he wasn't there when I last made contact." Steve flipped the communicator to the Avengers line. "Tony, it's Steve."

"Cap!" Tony shouted sounding breathless and more beat up that he would have expected. Steve felt his heart clench in his chest. "Ian alright?"

"Hi, Tony!" Ian shouted into the mic.

"Hooray," Tony said, without much actual enthusiasm, but Steve knew the thought was there. "Could you get back to Manhattan like... yesterday?"

Steve heard a pained 'wuff' come out of Tony's speaker.

"Ian, don't know how to break this so... your sister's here, not dead, and she's sort of either brainwashed or a clone, not sure which. She thinks you're dead, and that Steve murdered you." Tony exhaled again, obviously getting battered around. "She also hits like a fucking truck."

"Language," Ian said, but he was standing up in his seat now, looking out over the horizon. "How does she look?"

"Not a scratch on her. I usually don't make the distinction, but in this case I'm not going to hit a girl."

"Tell her we're on our way!" Ian said, and then he sat back in his seat, eyes closed. "Tony? Is Zola there?"

"Focusing on keeping your sister out of the fighting," Tony answered. "I'm gonna guess 'yes', but not anywhere I can see. Clint? Eyes on Zola?"

"We've got a Zola bot, yeah," Clint's voice came over the radio. "Widow and Shang-Chi have him mostly pinned down. Marvel, Hulk, Hyperion, and Thor are playing with the Caphulks, everyone else is rounding up mutates, Future Foundation on the assist. We sent Reed and Johnny through the portal to close it down."

"Dimension Z?" Steve said.

"I'm not an expert, but looks like," Tony answered. "Working on it."

"Tony," Ian said, softly now. "Be careful."

"Got your shield back up, kiddo?" Tony asked between grunts.

"Oops." Ian sat back, sliding a thin wire out of the wrist guard. It looked almost like a lock pick, but Ian carefully got to work prying open a plate with it, and then flipping a few things that Steve couldn't follow while also flying. They were well in view of Manhattan when Ian closed the plate and slid the wire back into its housing.

The photon shield hummed to life.

"Got it!" Ian announced.

"Nice work," Tony answered.

"It's got a thing so when it's shocked its turned off so you can find me and then I can turn it back on," Ian explained.

Steve just shook his head, because his son was amazing, and that was really the only response to it. "Remember what we practiced," Steve said as he eased them back towards the city. "You beside me, we watch each other's backs, you leave Zola to _me_."

"If you really think I'm going to let you take him on all on your own, you're pretty dumb," Ian said. "It's my fight as much as yours."

"Ian..."

" _Mine_ ," Ian said, more firmly, dark brown eyes glowering into his. "I haven't fought him since he brainwashed me. I need to prove I can."

"Don't fight with something to prove," Steve answered. He knew his son wanted to stand up to Zola, to his biological father, and prove that he wasn't like him, to move past it, Steve understood that every day. "Not like that."

"Dad." Ian set his jaw. "I have one thing in the whole world to prove. I'm going to save my sister, and then I'm going to rip out Zola's motherboard."

"You two," Sam said. "Get in back, I'm dropping you off before I join the fight. You..." Sam looked at Ian and ruffled his hair. "You're your father's son."

"I know," Ian answered, giving Sam his best goofy smile. "That's the one thing I never have to prove."

The two of them made their way to the back, and Ian stood right by the door, holding onto one of the bars. Steve held onto the other. It reminded him of their time, a lifetime - maybe four months - ago, when they had crashed into the middle of a different fight, a fight for their home.

"Be careful," Steve said.

"You too." They were still about a minute out. "It's not that I have to prove I'm not like him... it's not that I have to prove I'm like you... it's... I have to prove who I am, me."

"Ian Rogers."

"Yes."

"Twenty seconds," Sam's voice clicked over from the front. "Get ready to drop."

"Get us low." Steve opened the door and took in the scene. "There--" Tony was getting his ass handed to him by Jet down there, probably because he wasn't fighting back, just scooping and depositing, probably trash talking, or taunting, to keep her focused and away from the fight. "Be careful with her, she _wants_ to be good. She knew Zola was wrong."

"She'll know it again." Ian assured him. Ian shoved a communicator in his hear. "Iron Man, catch me!" 

Ian jumped out of the plane, way too low for Steve's comfort, but without a second thought, Tony pirouetted up and caught Ian in mid fall before setting him gently on the ground. Steve took his own leap, landed, rolled, and came up back to back with Tony.

"Nice job getting here," Tony said. "Not like I let your son's sister beat the hell out of a billion dollar, state of the art armor. I think my bruises have bruises, what the hell is that fighting style?"

"Tachyon fu," Steve answered.

"Oh, sure, tachyon fu." Tony sighed. "Alright, Captain, what's our play now?"

"Watch Ian's back while he tries to talk Jet down, keep Zola off of him until he's ready to go after him."

"Absolutely, Captains."

Steve smiled as the pair of them started to pick off mutates from the crowd. This was... this could work.

*

Ian slid to a halt a few feet from Tony, and looked over to see Jet standing, eyeing Ian speculatively, but not attacking. Tony took a few steps away, dad as well. His sister looked... worn, and yet somehow younger. "Jet?" He asked, voice soft. "It's Ian."

"MY BROTHER'S NAME IS LEOPOLD!" She shouted at him, her fists coming at him, wildly, but Ian had been practicing his hand-to-hand for a while now, at speed, and he dodged around the punches. He put a hand on her wrist, and used her momentum to push her to the ground, followed by pinning her on her back.

"My name is Ian. You are my sister. Father lied to you."

"No," Jet answered, this time managing to hook her legs around Ian's neck and send him to the ground, the two of them scrambled against each other, punched, kicked, Ian grabbed her hair and tugged, she scratched at his chest.

"My sister was good and kind!" Ian shouted at her. "She lived her life in Zola's shadow, worshiping his every word, but she still tried to help the Phrox, she helped them escape Zola's clutches. She _died_ so that I could come here to Earth..."

"She was weak!" Jet tugged at his armor. "Defective! Her frailty caused my brother's death."

"Her courage got me home!"

She kicked at him, aiming for his temple, and Ian ducked under, coming in to shove her again, but she moved out of the way.

"Don't you see? He's lied to you, every day, if you open your eyes to the world, if you feel with your heart instead of taking his word, you'll see."

Jet stopped, now glaring at him, her lip trembling for a moment. "That is heresy."

"It's truth," Ian said. He walked up to her and put a hand on her wrist. "Those are my friends, the ones fighting the mutates and the Captains... Zola wants to steal freedom. He can only win by cheating. He wins by making creatures that can't fight him. But we can fight him, we can pick. My sister chose to be good, you can choose again."

The pain in his chest was incredible, her fist punching hard enough that he heard a rib crack, maybe two, and he fell to the ground, sputtering for air.

Ian staggered to his feet, that he could was how he knew he was winning, this was just her lashing out, just like Ian did sometimes. He took a deep breath. "Do you love me?" Ian asked.

"Love is weakness."

He glanced over his shoulder, to where the Avengers slowly thinned the mutate hoards. "They're winning because they love this world. Father will lose because he does not, he wants to possess it, he wants to possess you and me. He had me kidnapped so you would not see me, would not know that Captain America saved me and brought me home."

Ian took a step towards her, and then another, before he circled his arms around her and squeezed her.

"I love you, you're my sister."

Her hands went to his back, one at the base of his neck, and he tensed against it, not that it would stop her if she tried to kill him now. It would come down to whoever was faster, and she would get to move first. "What is this?" She asked him.

"A hug. It means we're family. It means... even if we did not share the same blood, I love you." He steadied his heart, relaxed. His sister was good. "Did he ever tell you of our mother?"

Above him, Jet shook her head.

"She fought him every day."

"The mutates will just keep coming," Jet said. "You cannot win, father will see to it, he has an unlimited supply of them, enough to swarm the Earth."

"Then _help_ me. Go help Doctor Reed on the other side, help him close the portal."

"And if I do..." Jet asked, looking at him now, her eyes narrowed. "I will be your sister?"

"You're my sister forever, no matter what. You know he's wrong, don't you? You've known it in your gut forever."

"I prayed every day for guidance that does not come... to be delivered from this doubt," Jet answered, the same answer that dad said she had months ago, before she was cloned and different, no matter what Zola tried, he could breed his mutates without doubt, he could breed his Captains without doubt, but he could not breed his own children that way, no matter how he tried.

"Do what feels right," Ian told her. "I am going to defeat Zola."

He clicked on his communicator again and started to walk into the fray.

"Jet Black has been neutralized. I think she'll go help Doctor Richards."

"Did you seriously just hug the evil out of her?" Clint asked over the radio. "Guys, Junior just hugged the evil out of her."

Ian snorted. "There was some talking, too. Let me know... if she goes?" He asked up at Clint, even as he continued to walk. His chest hurt, his ribs were definitely cracked, but they would probably heal up soon. He didn't take the same sort of damage that dad did, but he knew he could take it more than most boys.

In the distance, he saw dad fighting with Zola, Iron Man, Widow, and Shang-Chi were helping.

"Alright, you can do this." He took another deep breath and started to charge his way through the crowd, climbing up one of the mutates and slamming the shield down on its head, slice one across the knees with the shield, move on, punch one hard in the back, move on, take one down, move onto the next.

"Jet's gone," Clint reported when he was almost to where the Zola fighting was happening. "Went back through the portal, no report from Reed."

"Keep me posted," Ian shot back, and then took the final burst to enter onto the scene where Zola stood, locked in combat with his huge, ugly, stupid face in the middle of his horrible chest.

Just for good measure, he flung the shield to connect with his eye-camera, jarring it out of place in time for him to help Tony dodge a shot.

"Leopold," Zola said, and his fake face grew wide in a smile. "How good of you to come join me, son."

"Son?" The word came through the headset from Clint - Ian had no idea how far the broadcast had gone - and he winced.

Maybe he should have thought this through more. No one else on the Avengers, except for Tony and Dad, knew his true parentage, and Clint was one of the biggest blabbermouths ever. He could do this, there was probably some Star Wars for this. "I'll never join you."

He heard Tony snicker over his headset, and immediately felt better. He could do this, no matter what, Dad and Tony would still love him, Jet would still be his sister, he could stand up to anyone and damn the consequences, they would come later. Dad taught him that too.

"I'm taking my sister _back_."

Ian ignored Zola's rambling, his blood father did like to ramble. Ian always worried he took after him like that, Dad was more brooding and quiet, but now Ian liked to think he took after Tony, even if blood didn't work that way.

"Do you really think these Avengers will love you? Will accept you? What do you think now that they know you are my son?" Zola shot off a beam towards Ian, and he blocked it away, gritting his teeth.

"It doesn't matter!" Ian shouted back. "My _real_ father loves me."

"And he continues to use you, continues to indoctrinate you. My precious boy." Zola stepped closer, mechanical hands outstretched, and Ian batted the arm away. "Do you really think he'll keep protecting you once I am gone?"

"I won't need it once you're gone!"

The battle around them continued, Ian punching and kicking at Zola, Zola trying to fight back without harming Ian too much, Dad and Tony, Natasha and Shang-Chi behind him, providing backup and making their own hits when they could, keeping the mutates and Captains from interfering with the fight.

"You ungrateful spawn!" Zola finally shouted. "My divine blood courses through your veins and you deny it for this self-righteous hypocrite!"

"I deny you because you are a monster," Ian yelled back, taking a downward swing to the shield and trying to let it slide off. "Every day back home, we helped our people, we helped them live, we helped them thrive, EVERY DAY YOU HUNTED THEM! You don't love me, you don't love Jet, you don't love anything you've created."

"I love you with all of my heart, Leopold."

"MY NAME IS IAN!"

He didn't want to hear this, his father's lies. Ian had only ever believed a word he had said when he was brainwashed. Every time Zola opened his mouth it was to lie, it was to be deceitful, and it was to try to twist Ian up inside. It worked on Dad, sometimes, Ian knew that, knew that there was doubt in Dad's heart. It was in Ian's heart, too. That was how he knew it was good, because no matter how often the doubt came, and the worry came, Ian knew what he did was right.

Ian bashed the shield into Zola's knee, breaking it right at the joint and then he hopped up, bearing down on him hard enough to throw his balance. His left hand held the shield to keep the eye laser from targeting him, and Ian began to slam his fist, repeatedly, into Zola's face.

"I reject you! You are not my father! My father is Steve Rogers! I am a good man! My blood does not make me a monster!" Each pounding of his fist against Zola's face made him cry out, enough that he couldn't talk, couldn't laugh at Ian anymore.

With one final slam, Ian felt the plate crack under his fist, and he watched it smear with the blood off of his fist.

Ian felt an arm loop around his waist, and tug him off. Looking down it was the black and gold of the Iron Man armor, and Ian struggled against it for just a few seconds. "Calm down, kiddo. A little violence, probably healthy. Moderately hot-blooded patricide, less cool. Let your dad handle this."

He didn't _want_ Dad to handle it. He wanted to... He wanted to... He started to cry, face buried in Tony's chest plate, fingers digging into metal that wouldn't give under his fingers, arms around his that squeezed just a little. "I could have done it."

"I know," Tony said.

"I wanted to."

"That's why you shouldn't." Tony flipped his face mask up, and planted a kiss on Ian's forehead. "Let your dad take care of this."

Tony put a hand on the back of his head, keeping Ian from looking at the mechanical and squishy noises of death came from behind him. "Dad always makes me look away."

"You shouldn't have to carry that. It's more than a child should take on."

A few moments later, Tony let him go, and Ian stood in the swirl of battle, looking around, chest aching. Shang-Chi and Natasha had gone back to the fray, ignoring Steve and Tony as they stood in the eye with Ian.

"Update from Reed," Clint's voice came over the headphone. "Jet's helped him shut down the portals and... they're apparently blowing the superstructure inside Z."

"The Phrox?" Ian asked. "They have women and some children."

"It's..." Clint trailed off, and then cleared his throat. "It's been thousands of years in there. Jet says that they live as nomads, they don't live in Zolandia at all."

"Oh..." Ian blinked away his tears. "May you be guided through the day, and all the night..."

"You should back away," Reed's voice came over the communicator. "We're coming through, hot."

Ian, Tony, and Dad all scrambled away from the portal. Tony brought up his hands and then some of the missiles in his suit as well, they waited, Ian waited as well. A few dozen mutates charged through, and Ian stepped forward with dad and Tony to beat back that press, until finally Reed, Johnny, and after a brief moment longer, Jet, all came through.

"You made it!" Ian wrapped his arms around his sister and after a long pause, Jet returned the gesture.

"Our father's consciousness has been purged from his systems... he cannot return from here."

"It's the right thing," Ian said, sure of himself. "He will never allow us to remain free, and would keep fighting. I... come with me."

He put out his hand and took Jet by the wrist, taking her over to where Zola's broken body was, his face-screen blank, his knee broken, his screen shattered where Ian had punched it hard, the eye camera snapped.

"He is no god," Jet whispered under her breath.

"No, but he is our father." He bit his lip. "The Phrox... when someone dies, they say a few words about them, it is the way that you let go of them so that they can move on to the Fields of Forever where they receive... what is deserved. I have no words for him."

"Every day, he raised me to fight... he made me strong, but... he could not dampen the questions I had in my mind."

"Everyone's probably gonna wanna make sure you're not super crazy or something," Ian told her. "You can come to counseling with me and Mike. He's nice."

"You hold dominion over him?"

Ian laughed. "I think we've got a little bit of Earth to explain."

"Oh, great," Tony said. "Are you seriously going to explain Earth to your sister? I don't think I can take more Earth lessons."

"I did the Empire Strikes Back thing great," Ian said, lip pushed out in a pout.

"That you did, kiddo, that you did."

*

Tony looked out over the swath of destruction that was Central Park. Thankfully there were few casualties, some broken _everything_ , a few injured Avengers, no obviously injured civilians. Jessica had hopefully evacuated most of them to the Tower for quarantine where they would be helped out of their Zola-ness by Bruce.

"Are you also Leopold's father?" Jet asked him.

"Ian," Ian said. "It's Ian. I am named after my father's grandfather."

Tony looked between the two of them. "No, I'm... Ian's..." He waved his hand, because there really wasn't any word for it. He definitely wasn't Ian's father, he barely qualified as Steve's 'mate' at the moment, not that the girl would understand the word. Steve had spoken of Jet only rarely, but he knew that she was a bit of a naif, intentionally so on Zola's part.

"He's my Tony," Ian explained, and gave him another hug around the waist.

Jet frowned, and then looked up at Tony, and then back over to Ian. "Is that some sort of familial relation?" But before Ian could answer, Jet leaned in and gave him a hug around his waist.

Weirdest day ever.

"Damn, Stark, fishing for jailbait?" Johnny asked, just a few feet from him.

"Cut it out, Johnny," Reed said. "Well... exciting first day of school?"

Ian glanced at Tony and gave him a look that Tony could only interpret as 'geniuses sure are dumb sometimes, aren't they', which was something that Tony often felt when dealing with Reed, or himself, so he understood that only too well. "Yeah... um... did everyone hear Zola talking to me?"

Tony knew, immediately, what Ian was worried about, the one thing that he'd worried about since the moment he'd arrived on Earth, the secret he'd kept from everyone except Tony for over two months, splattered over the Avengers comm channels, no doubt piped over to at least Reed, probably Sue as well...

"Yes." Reed looked at Ian, even bent over a bit when doing it, enough so that he split the difference between Ian and Jet's heights. "I'll tell you the same thing that I've told Bentley: you can be who you want to be. Your father does not define you."

Ian nodded still somber. "I would have liked it secret..."

"I'm sure Bentley will enjoy it," Reed said, with a smirk that said that he knew exactly how... peculiar Bentley could be about his heritage.

Ian sighed.

 _Sue_ was the one who finally broke the tension, by coming over and putting a hand on Ian's shoulder. "Well, you and your sister are coming over for dinner in a few days, after you get settled in, of course."

Tony suddenly realized that Steve would, of course, be adopting Jet, she would be in the tower, probably somewhere in their suite... he would actually need to renovate it. Suddenly his spacious two bedroom was seeming fairly cramped.

Tony wanted to know why he had acquired a teenage girl. He might very well be the least qualified person in the entire Tower to handle a teenage girl. Maybe he could pawn her off on Natasha...

"Well, this has been fun, but I'm going to steal Banner and get to work on our civilians." Tony glanced over the carnage. He felt a little guilty about leaving it like this, but this was usually Steve's rodeo and they did need to get to work on the civilians, ASAP. "Ian?"

"This is my responsibility," he said, mouth set in a hard line.

Tony had to fight down the urge to cuff the kid, because if he got any more mini-Steve, Tony might die.

"Go with Tony." Steve's voice was clear that there would be no argument. "And Jet, you and... Reed may be able to help with Banner's consciousness mix. You know the Zola consciousness better than us."

He arched an eyebrow at Steve.

"I've got this."

Steve. Of course. Tony sighed and signaled for the Quinjet they'd come in on to come back down and pick them up. Bobby was a bit banged up, so he joined Reed, Tony, Banner, and the kids as well. Tony watched, nervous, as Bobby glanced over at Ian and Jet, back at Tony, and then back over to Ian and Jet.

"Nice work out there," he said, finally. "Now I know how you can cheat at football."

"It's not cheating if I'm naturally that awesome," Ian shot back, and the tension started to melt away.

Tony snorted.

The trip back to the Tower was fairly quick, and they offloaded, meeting up with Jessica in the quarantine zone. There were almost three dozen civilians, in various states of pain and restraint.

"I've had it with creepy Zolas for the day," Jess said, heading back into the control room where Jet and Ian were both standing, looking confused for a moment, before Ian awkwardly looked away.

Life. Tony sighed. "Banner, looks like we're going to need more antidotes than I originally thought."

"I have a dozen bags mixed," he answered, but they both could do basic math. "I'll get to work on that. "We'll need them heavily restrained, and sedated. Would have liked Blake here for that."

"One of the Caphulks escaped the park, he and Hyperion's top priority is containment on that." Tony looked out over the zone. "Reed?"

"Got three H.E.R.B.I.E.s incoming, but they can only assist after the patients are restrained."

"Jet and I will do it," Ian said. He took Jet by the wrist and pulled her into the zone. "It won't be anything we haven't heard."

Tony and Jessica found themselves alone in the quarantine control room, Tony kept glancing at the vitals spread across the console, and keeping an eye out for any other rounded up Zola infected civilians that Hawkeye, and a few of the Foundation were tracking down.

"What did I miss?" Jessica asked. "Where the hell did we pick up a teenager? Is that Zola's minion?"

"Jet Black Zola," Tony answered. "Ian's sister, or... well I'm pretty sure she's a clone of the original, since Steve saw her die to help him and Ian out of Z. Zola's been tweaking her for the last thousand years or so, Dimension Z time, and has worked up Ian as some sort of martyr to Captain America and all that is evil."

"Half-sister," Jessica clarified.

"Wellll..." Tony glanced down at the console. "Let's just say Steve fudged that a little bit, and we're going to be glad that Dimension Z doesn't have child protective services, and... the statute of limitations is probably up in the kidnapping at this point."

"Wow." Jessica stood, silent, for a long minute. "You don't sound surprised."

"Figured it out before Steve got out of his coma," Tony answered. "Avengers chairpersons have access to things like everyone's blood type. Ian and Steve weren't compatible for him to be a biological kid. Zola's responsible for the Serum, probably based on in vitro, prenatal experiments if I were to wager."

Jess didn't answer, again. "You seem fairly nonchalant."

"How many reformed villains have we had on the team over the years? Ian was raised by Steve from the day he was born, Jet's... well, we'll see, Reed and Sue seem willing to go with it. Based on what Steve and Ian have both told me, she's a fairly good person, even raised like she was, she never had the stomach for the slaughter that Zola wanted her to lead."

Tony didn't know how he felt about it. Ian he trusted immediately, it was impossible not to see Steve's influence on him. Jet, Ian trusted, Steve seemed to trust, but he knew that trust would be in shorter supply, from Tony, from the rest of the Avengers... she would need to earn it more than Ian did.

"I don't want him to be treated differently, I don't want _her_ to be treated any differently." Tony didn't know if that would happen, though.

"News flash," Jessica said. "You spend your early life as a villain, and then have your face stolen by a Skrull, people look at you differently."

"I know," Tony didn't _know_ , he'd had his moments, and he knew how some people - Luke Cage, sometimes Sam Wilson - still looked at him for his role during SHRA. "I don't want that for either of them."

"They're going to have to earn it," Jessica answered. "Jet especially. Also, in case you weren't aware, you're acting weirdly paternal."

Tony huffed. "I'm way too young to have a teenage daughter."

"I know how old you are, Stark. You wouldn't have even needed to start that young."

At that moment, he just really would have preferred that Jessica leave him to his delusions where he wasn't so in love with Steve Rogers that he was going to adopt her if Steve even blinked in that direction.

"We have incapacitated them," Jet said.

Tony glanced up, really hoping that didn't mean that Jet had punched them in the face, but the quirk on Ian's lips said that everything was fine on that end. "Jet took a look and triaged them."

"Good work," Reed said, coming back in the room and escorting a small cadre of H.E.R.B.I.E. bots to do the medical honors. Tony seriously considered stealing one. "Both of you."

Stupid Reed and his actually having experience being a father. Tony nodded towards both of them. "Yeah, good work. Reed, you wanna take the lead on this? Banner should have more juiced cooked up, soon, but we'll want to get the worst infected cleared up ASAP."

"Got it, Tony."

Tony supervised, keeping an ear on the clean up, on the pop news, on the various electronic and networked media, seeing what was in the public consciousness about the attack. Zola was obvious - he had a certain handiwork that was impossible to miss, but who Jet was wasn't even a question in the public mind. That was good, he or Reed, or both of them, would probably need to take point on that. Somehow he got away with having the genetic clone of a super villain on his science team, so Tony should probably take a point on that front.

"Hey." Steve came up behind him, an arm wrapped at his waist, and then pressed his nose into the nape of Tony's neck.

He very nearly jumped out of his own skin. Tony wasn't used to the idea of Steve possibly just... coming up to him and doing something so blatant, somewhere other than the garage or his room. "Hi... you alright?"

"Clean up is mostly handled," Steve said. "It... was hard to see mutates, and Captains, again like that. It was like being back there, remembering it all, the death, the fighting..."

"Last time," Tony promised, even if he couldn't really do that. "Last time that monster comes for your son, last time he comes gunning for you."

"You know you can't promise that, certainly not with someone like Zola. He's probably got even more robots, more consciousnesses out there, waiting..." Steve kissed his neck, and then let go, backing away. "Where's Ian?"

"In with Jet and Reed and some H.E.R.B.I.E.s, they're using the consciousness interferon that Banner developed to flush out the Zola infection on our civilians." Tony punched up the screen for Steve to watch. Jet was carefully observing the actual medical proceedings, while Ian was talking with each of the victims. "They've gone through about a dozen, but they hit the worst infected first, no idea if they'll survive. Jet says that a human isn't supposed to be able to withstand for more than a few hours."

The silence between them reminded him that Steve had lived with on in his chest for twelve years. "Do you think they know...?"

"About?"

"Ian and Jet."

"No idea, I'll have to ask Reed. We could probably get a telepath in, I'm sure most of them would more than happily volunteer to have the experience and the memories wiped clean." After Steve came and joined him at the console, watching his son work with Reed and Jet, Tony cleared his throat. "What are you going to do about her?"

"Get her set up here," Steve said, no hesitation. "Counselor, tutors, mentors, anything she needs. She's not quite the Jet I remember, not the girl who turned against her father once and helped free some of the Phrox, helped fight her father to a standstill to get me and Ian home... but I'm sure there's something worth fighting for. Zola couldn't take his children's free will, couldn't... couldn't crush Mary in them, no matter how hard he tried."

"It's a nice thought," Tony said, not dismissing Steve's assessment, but... a bit too cynical to really buy into it. "Love's pretty crazy like that. It's nice to think that the one time Zola actually loved another human being, he put in the seeds of his downfall."

"They'll need... to remember her, to remember that Zola is only half of what makes them who they are, and that they don't have to end up like him." Steve hung his head, and then sighed. "I wanted to spare Ian this."

"Well, Jessica unsubtly reminded me we've taken in people from worse backgrounds than either of them." Tony put a hand on Steve's shoulder, and then leaned in, kissing him on the jaw. "And they're kids. I... I love your son, Steve."

"And Jet?" Steve asked, a hint of challenge in his voice.

"Working on it." A moment later he shrugged. "A little more Sasha Hammer than I'd like, but she loves Ian."

Tony wasn't certain how he'd gotten here, but he'd take it if it meant Steve standing beside him, if it meant having... having something he had given up on a long time ago, if he was being honest. Having Steve, having something resembling a family, having all of that while still having all of the other things that mattered to him, was more than he'd ever hoped for.

~epilogue~

It took more than a few days for things to settle down again and for Steve's life to go back to something that had become normal. They had three more pockets of 'Zola resistance' that needed the Avengers to go after them. Steve was back into the Avengers training rotations, much to Ian's delight, and his son was _far_ too invested in his and Tony's relationship. That was at least part of the reason he woke up with his arm draped over Tony's stomach and his lips against his shoulder, even though the most sleeping together they had done was strictly that, sleeping together.

Tony was surprisingly understanding about it, not that it kept him from taking advantage of Steve's eagerness to make out against any and every surface in the garage and Tony's bedroom, however. He gave Tony a soft kiss against the shoulder blade before he made his morning journey down to his own rooms.

Even though it had unnerved Steve at first, Jet and Ian had acquired another bed and were using the same room at night. There was a small part of him that worried that Jet would not be sincere in her desire to change, but time seemed to slowly be proving the concern false.

He gave a soft knock on their door before retiring to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, changed into exercise clothing, and by the time he was back in the living room the pair of them were changed and ready for their morning run. They both _could_ far outpace him, but only in short bursts, so they hit the exercise floor and did their ten miles, an hour between sparring and working bags, and then showers, they were still up and downstairs for breakfast far before most Avengers who'd spent the night in the Tower.

Jarvis was, of course, up, working on breakfast, and as soon as the three of them entered the kitchen, he began to heat up pans for omelets. "And what will it be this morning?"

"Pigs and cheese," Ian answered.

"Spinach and feta, please, Jarvis."

Jet took longer to decide, even as Jarvis headed over to the refrigerator, but he knew that she was still settling... very slowly. "Vegetables, and... meat."

"I'll teach you more vegetables," Ian told her. "Jarvis, all of the vegetables."

"Pretty sure that's ill-advised, kiddo," Tony said, yawning from the doorway and stretching, showing off a sliver of abs that made Steve reconsider the wisdom of _not_ pressing their relationship further.

Tony got a hug from Ian, a smile from Steve, and when Tony offered Jet a hug, he earned a stern 'that is unnecessary' from Jet, before he finally slid next to Steve.

"All of the coffee."

"Pretty sure that's ill-advised, Tony," Ian shot back.

Tony just groaned and put his head against the counter. "Busy days need coffee."

Steve gave into the urge to put a hand against his neck and squeezed, which earned him a snort. After breakfast, the kids headed off to school, and if that wasn't the most terrifyingly normal thing in his entire life, Steve wasn't sure what was.

He went to his counselor, talked what felt like forever about his time in Z, about the changes that had happened since last week, since the fact that neither Ian nor Jet were his biological children was fairly well known at S.H.I.E.L.D., since he could talk more freely about having no memories of intimacy with Mary that were his own... it helped some, to not have to carry that burden, but he also knew it had started to spread across the grapevine of S.H.I.E.L.D., and there were far too many people wondering what Ian, or Jet, could do for them, rather than treat them as children who needed to be protected.

Steve had a drink with Sam.

He went back to the Tower, set up in one of the lounges, worked on rosters, and looked over other things the Avengers might have on the horizon.

In short, he slowly found himself stepping back into his role with the Avengers, and it felt damn good.

"Steve?" Sharon was standing in the doorway, resting there, head against the door frame.

"Hey." He turned around, gave her his best smile, but he found himself... awkward with her. She was well aware that he'd lied to her a few months ago, knew that Ian wasn't biologically his, knew that Jet was here... and the tension of all of those lies wasn't something he liked having between them.

"You..." She took a few steps, and Steve gave his best smile at her. "You haven't stopped by since..." It wasn't like her to not have her words, but he understood, he knew what she was saying. At least that much hadn't changed, even after a decade.

"I don't think it changes much," Steve said, honestly. There was also the small matter of Tony. "Ian is still my son. Jet... is my responsibility now, too. She's Ian's sister. You can't honestly tell me that your feelings have changed."

"I guess not." Sharon smiled again, rueful and sad, and then came to join him on the couch. "When I thought about our life together... it never included children."

"My life is theirs now," Steve answered. He'd promised Ian, years ago, that he would always be there for him, and as much as it scared him to try to start something with Tony, to step back into being an Avenger, he was doing his best to be there for Ian, and now for Jet, as much as he could. "I'm... I'm a father, first and foremost."

She reached out, hand on his cheek, and some small part of him remembered this touch, remembered that even when they were friends it was a comfort. Things were still so up in the air, still so difficult, but they couldn't do that, he couldn't let Sharon think that this could go anywhere. Even if he and Tony hadn't been trying something, he couldn't...

Steve took her hand in his, pulling it just far enough away to make his point, he hoped. "Sharon, I--"

Which was, of course, when Ian chose to walk in, take one look at the scene, and gasp. When Steve caught him his eyes were wide, and after a moment, hurt, before his face hardened and he stormed back out.

"What--?" Sharon asked, and Steve watched a momentary hurt, and confusion, cross her face.

"I'm... I'm seeing someone," Steve explained, pulling her hand even farther away. "It's new, obviously, but Ian knows it's not human custom to have more than one mate at a time."

"I'm sorry," she said, and pulled her hand the rest of the way away. "I wouldn't have done that if I'd known."

Steve knew that. Still, he gave her hand a squeeze. "You know I care for you, I always will, but so much has changed. I got through Z, in no small part, because of you. I _missed_ you."

"But you always knew we wouldn't be one happy family," Sharon said, another smile on her face, filled with regret.

She was right. Steve always knew where she'd fallen on the topic, and he'd loved that drive in her, the fact that she was a professional who wasn't going to take months - _years_ \- out of her career to raise a child, but now Steve couldn't be with someone who wasn't prepared for that. "Right."

"Well, I think I'll leave you to explain to your son that you weren't cheating." She stood, putting more distance between them, enough that he knew it was still hard for her, no matter how tough the exterior. "Are we going to see you back at S.H.I.E.L.D. soon?"

"I don't think so. I know I look like I'm back on my game, but I need more time to get things in place."

"Then you're taking me to lunch, Captain." Captain, title, even more distance than usual, but it wasn't strange for her to do that when they were 'off again'. "We are going to work together again."

"We will." He considered a hug, or a kiss, and realized that would be in poor taste, wouldn't be fair to either of them. "I'll call."

She raised an eyebrow that said she didn't believe him.

"I will. This week."

"Keeping you to that, soldier."

He, unsurprisingly, found Ian down in Tony's workshop. He, surprisingly, found Ian huddled up on Tony's lap, arms around Tony's waist, crying. Tony either had no idea what was going on, or had decided it wasn't important, because when he glanced up at Steve his eyes were filled with the panic of 'what the hell do I do with a sobbing twelve year old?', not 'are we breaking up?', so there was that at least.

Tony, for all his occasional protestations to the contrary, was very good with Ian, even when - or perhaps especially when - he was being emotional. He was soothing Ian with soft shushing noises, and a hand rubbing up and down his back. "Hey, it's alright, I'm here... I'm here."

Ian only responded by squeezing Tony tighter.

"Ian."

Ian looked up at him, and glowered. "I'm mad at you."

"Whoa," Tony said, pulling away to look Ian in the face. "Pretty sure he doesn't deserve it. What the hell did you do, Steve?" Tony's voice was a sarcastic, and humorous, accusation.

He sighed, and then came over to where Ian was sitting, pressing a kiss to his temple. "Sharon came over."

Tony stiffened this time, and the amusement was immediately replaced with anxiety. Whatever humor Tony had felt in the situation of Ian being mad at Steve was gone in a heartbeat.

"She still--" He waved his hand, trying to wave it all away in his mind. "I told her--" He leaned in, so he was speaking right into Ian's eyes. "I told her that I was seeing someone else, because I am."

Ian gave him a doubtful sort of look, and Steve sighed, before bodily scooping up his son and hugging him. "You're not going to leave Tony?"

"I--" Steve sighed, and kissed Ian on the forehead, before dropping him down onto his feet. "I can't promise that. Right now, no, of course not. Tony and I have a lot to work out, a lot of things that will be tough, but we are working on it, we're talking, we're... figuring things out."

"Val and Bentley and me went to the internet at the Baxter to figure out how boys and boys can mate and it does sound really complicated."

Tony chose that moment to interrupt, by all but shouting: "What the hell, that man has over a dozen children under ten in that building and he didn't even install a net nanny?!"

"We used Uncle Johnny's computer."

Tony laughed, before shaking his head and coming over to Ian, putting his hands on the boy's shoulders. "Ian... I... your dad and I are working on it, but I promise you, no matter what, whether I'm your dad's mate or not, whether we're angry at each other or not, whether we're fighting or not, I will _always_ be here for you. Always. I-- I promise. That's my job as your Chieftain, isn't it?"

Ian nodded.

"I appreciate that you'd like me to get laid in the process, though."

Ian's face contorted as he scrunched his eyebrows in concentration, mouth twisted off to one side. "On your back is one of the recommended--"

Tony put his hand over Ian's mouth. "I didn't even teach you that! Your father cannot blame me for that."

It was Steve's turn to laugh, and he came over, grabbing Ian around the waist and twirling him a bit. "Stop looking up mating online. Now scoot."

"But..." Ian started to complain, and then stepped away. "Alright! Have fun! Bye. I'll lock the door."

Steve was laughing against Tony's shoulder by the time Ian was gone, and once they were alone, Steve began to kiss Tony's shoulder, and then his neck. "It was nothing, I really did tell her I was dating someone else. I think she just..."

"Wanted to get with a DILF?" Tony ran his hands up Steve's chest, and then around the back of his neck. "Look, I get it, it won't be the first time Sharon and I have... shared you. It'll just be the first time I'm the one you're sleeping with."

Tony wasn't wrong, he and Sharon... were not infrequent in their arguments over him.

"Promise me one thing," Tony said, pulling them far enough back so he could look into his eyes. "Two... two things."

Steve chuckled.

"We'll try to work things out. We haven't always listened to each other in the past, we have a hard time seeing eye to eye. I always care about you, always, every day, but..."

"I will try," Steve answered. "But that goes for you too, Mister."

Tony answered by bowing his head and smiling. "Alright. The second... this isn't just about Ian, is it?"

It was a harder promise to make, not because it was about Ian, but to deny that he'd been part of it would be a lie. "I've been attracted to you for years, Tony. Why now? Part of it is Ian, part of it is realizing I haven't let myself be close enough to the people I care about. Am I with you because you love my son? Yes, but it's more than I couldn't be with you if I didn't."

The arms around his neck yanked him forward, and Tony crashed their lips together. Steve happily joined in, hands going to Tony's shoulders and pulling him in. This they could definitely work out.

*

Ian had noticed that Jet liked to spend her free time up on the roof of the Avengers Tower, looking over the city. He wondered if it might remind her of Zolandia, or if she just liked the view. Even though it had been almost a week since the fight with Zola, Ian knew from experience that things didn't get better overnight.

Jet didn't wake up screaming like him. Ian was glad for that.

"The air is different here," she said, when Ian was still several feet away, looking out over the city.

"It has more car burnings in the air," Ian agreed. "But the sun is clearer, and the air is nicer out over on the Bay." He pointed south. "It's nicer in the Upstate, too. Dad and I went there and killed a bear, and some deers, to get fur."

Jet didn't answer that, and instead came to stand beside him as they looked out over the city. She was dressed in different clothes now, thin, stretchy material over her whole body that was like what Natasha or Sharon wore, rather than the loose jeans and star t-shirt that Ian had taken to wearing when he didn't have to fight.

"Dad and Tony are going out for food eating, tonight," he said. "Do you want to come?" Ian thought they should have more alone time, but they still did dates by themselves once or twice a week, so maybe that was enough.

"Your 'dad' is not my father," Jet said.

Ian thought that maybe she should sound sad, but she didn't, she was just saying it like a fact. "He could be."

"No, he could not. My whole life has been in service to my God, in the belief that his divine blood flows through my veins and makes me the rightful Empress of this world..." She leaned farther against the high wall that kept them safe from falling. "But the Avengers turned away his attack with no effort. My father could not defeat yours even over twelve years where his only army was a child and your Phrox... he has no divine rights here."

"That doesn't mean dad wouldn't love you. He loves me even though my blood isn't his. He taught me goodness."

"He does not trust me," Jet said. "It is a small thing, not the way as some of the other Avengers, but I can read his movements, and that he is afraid... afraid for you."

Ian wished he could say that wasn't true, but the Avengers looked at him differently, too, he knew that. He didn't want it to change, but at least Tony already knew. That hadn't changed, and Tony had assured him that in time they would go back to the way things were. "I trust you."

"I know." She put an arm around his shoulder. "Father spoke of you often, your loss, how it hurt him that you had been taken from him, lost to him forever by the evils of Captain America... I see it is untrue."

"Dad didn't make Zola lose me, dad taught me a different way. The Phrox did, too. It was a harsher life, we ate less, we were worried that we could die, but we made our way through it because we had to, we made it home because we had to, and my sister... my sister before you, she wanted me to get home, she sacrificed herself so that we could."

"I am glad," Jet said. "You are happy here, you love your father... but he is not my father, I never met you before a few days ago, the Jet you both remember is dead, replaced by me in an effort by father to purge the defect of caring..." She trailed off, head bowed. "I do not like the weight of it."

"It'll get better," Ian said, promised. "When I first got here, I had nightmares every night, I was so scared, my dad was sick and everything was so strange, now I know Earth more, I love it, and you can learn the same."

"I spoke to Sue, and the Jen," she said. "They invited me to join the Foundation if I wished."

"Oh, you wouldn't be far at all. I go there almost every day."

Jet made a soft hum, confirming it. "Father was not wrong that there are many things wrong with this world."

Ian didn't like it, but he did agree. That was why he had decided he would become an Avenger as soon as he was old enough. "That's why I want to fight for it."

"I think... I would like to not fight."

"Then don't," Ian said, he leaned in and bumped his shoulder to hers, relaxed. "I'll do the fighting for you, you can be the brains."

"Father engineered you to be intelligent."

"Well... Tony says that genius isn't bad, or evil, but I think I'm more comfortable... just being smart, not being a genius." It was something he was still learning to live with, still trying to be comfortable with, and he knew it would be hard to fight against. His blood father had done so much evil, it was hard to remember that that was not all there was to him. "I'll be at the Foundation, too, just different. Well, if you don't want to go out with dad and Tony, let's change into streets clothes and have lunch."

"So you do not mind if I join the Foundation?" Jet asked, following him inside.

"No. You get to do what you want. Tony can get you an Aimee and we can emails, and talk. It will be good." He punched the elevator button down, and they went, and Ian thumbed open the door to their rooms.

"Someone's here." Jet stepped in front of him.

Ian had his fists up a moment later. The man stepped out of a dark corner, dressed all in black, and unfamiliar to Ian. He had a hand up, but Ian was taking no chances at the moment. He'd gotten kidnapped last week, and strange people in his dad's room was not cool. "Don't kill him."

Jet still needed that instruction, but otherwise she moved forward, so fast Ian couldn't even see for a moment, and he followed just behind. She hit the man in the stomach, Ian grabbed the man's arm and yanked him to the ground, face first winded. Ian shoved a hand to the back of the man's neck.

"Who do you work for!?" Ian growled into the man's ear, pressing his full weight into the man's spine.

"Fuck, how...?" The man struggled underneath Ian, and Ian shoved his face down harder.

"Language," Ian said. "There are little kids present."

"My name is Bucky! James Barnes. I'm a friend of your father's."

Ian knew that name. It hadn't been Dad, though, who had tried to use that name against him. Zola had been the one who called dad a vampire, said he fed on youth and making his children into soldiers to fight, mindless to his cause. "Well, if you weren't being creepy maybe we wouldn't have punched you."

He levered himself off, and he and Jet stepped away far enough that another aggressive move could have been met with force.

"You can get up now."

"Sure, sure, I'll just leave my dignity on the damn floor, if that's alright with you." Bucky stood, and brushed himself off, not that he really needed that, and Ian looked at him enough to get his measure.

He was in all black, like Ian had noted before, and he was taller than in all of those reels that Zola had shown him when he'd gotten all brainwashed. He was an adult, not a kid... Ian didn't know exactly what he'd expected. After a moment of consideration, he pushed a button on his wrist. "Aimee, please have dad come to our room. [Intruder]." Ian pointed at the couch.

Bucky took the instruction for what it was, and sat on the couch, hands relaxed at his side.

"Polite people call," Ian said. "We have commcards and everything."

Bucky snorted. "Alright, alright, message received mini-Steve. I should have called rather than sneak into your room, although Stark needs to beef up his security, since I was able to break in."

Ian frowned at Bucky, he was probably right. "I'll tell him that..." Ian could only remain quiet for so long, in the face of _Bucky_ , his dad's first... teammate. "You fought with my dad? What was he like when he was younger? Do you come over often? Do you want to have lunch with me 'n' Jet?"

Dad burst in a moment later, dad had his shield out and at the ready. He scanned the room for threats, and then his eyes fell on Bucky, and he smiled. "Bucky. You should have called!"

"Yes," Bucky answered. "YES! I should have called. Now will you call off your attack babies?"

Dad laughed, and took a step forward, and Bucky stood up to greet him, squeezing him close. "I think you deserved that, but it's so good to see you."

Ian stood down, then, and Jet did as well.

"My ears at Shield are useless," Bucky said, and he pulled away from dad's hug. "What the _hell_ happened to you? I go out of town for a few months and you come up with..." He waved his hands at the Jet and Ian.

"Long story..." Dad took a deep breath and then looked over at Ian and Jet, and then back to Bucky. "You two don't have to stick around."

Ian looked over to Jet, and then back to dad, before he tried to decide if dad _wanted_ them gone or just was saying that it wouldn't be a big deal for them to go or stay. "We'll get some lunch."

He gave his dad a hug, and then kissed his cheek. "Nice to meet you, Bucky. Sorry for punching you."

"I'm not," Jet said. "You should not have snuck into our room."

"Yeah... well I think everyone learned some manners today," Ian said, and then ushered Jet back to their room to change, following after her, before he ended up in the doorway. "Um... Bucky?"

"Yeah, kid?"

"You and dad, you're friends, right? After... after everything?" The thing with Zola, the thing where he'd called dad a vampire, living off of the young... Ian _knew_ it wasn't true, but here was Bucky, standing with his dad, and... hearing him say it was important.

"The best," Bucky answered, no hesitation.

He and Jet went to change, and then headed out after that.

"Why did you ask him about him and your father being friends?" Jet asked as they made their way towards Chinese food - Jet still hadn't learned about Chinese food.

"Zola said that Dad uses people, makes them fight for him... I didn't think it was true, but... it's nice to hear." Ian _had_ worried about it, but Bucky wouldn't have come to visit Dad and hug him if they weren't friends.

The two of them got a table and then just... started to relax. Ian was definitely getting the hang of this 'Earth' thing. It was pretty fun just to go out exploring, as well, now that he was pretty sure even if he got kidnapped, dad and Tony would find him.

"When do you think you're going to move to the Baxter?" He asked, sipping on his tea.

"In the next few days. Mrs. Richards explained that she will teach me more about the culture of Earth. It..." Jet looked down at her tea cup, and took a sip. "You have your father, but... for me he is not my father, and never will be. I was trained to see him as my hated enemy, I was taught to think of you as a sacrifice to understand that compassion is a weakness, seeing you both, as much as you are my brother, is difficult."

"You're still my sister," Ian promised her.

"And you are still my brother, but I will... find my own mind, after following the will of my father for far too long."

"I think the Future Foundation is good for that." They focused so much on the science, on the... _thinking_ about the future, and Ian liked that, but there was a lot of him that was like his father, wanting to defend with a shield, not just think and invent. "Just don't listen to Bentley too much. He likes the whole super villain thing every once and a while."

"He seemed jealous," Jet said, with a little smile. "Or father is far more villainous, a superior villain, when I do that laugh he does he gets very unnerved."

A giggle bubbled up in his chest, and he tried to squash it behind his teacup. "Don't tease him too badly."

Jet gave him a little smile. Maybe she didn't understand Earth quite as well as Ian did, and didn't have years of dad explaining it, and months of Tony explaining it, but they would get it eventually. They would always be family, Ian would see to it.

*

Tony hadn't immediately noticed Bucky sneaking into the Tower, although in his defense, the Tower did still recognize him as an Avenger, so he didn't feel quite so bad about that. Still, he wasn't going to stalk Steve while he was getting a visit from his friend, especially when the kids made it out of the Tower and to a local dim sum place unmolested. Yes, he had Ian on pretty much 24 hour monitoring after the kidnap attempt.

Things were... good.

Things were surprisingly good in Tony's life, good enough that he was starting to wonder when it was all going to go to hell. He and Steve had already made it through two weeks of something that could be considered dating, Steve seemed to be committed, Tony was committed, his... Ian adored him, Jet tolerated him, and the kids were settling in fairly well considering the bombshell of a revelation that had hit a few days ago.

The door to his workshop opened up, and he glanced over his shoulder long enough to see Bucky standing there.

"Do I need to suit up?" Tony asked, only half joking. Bucky did have an unfortunate habit of beating the crap out of Tony over Steve's honor.

"Maybe." Bucky took a few more steps into the room, and Tony shut away the projects he was working on, turned to take a look at the man. "You need to beef up your security, Stark. If my niece and nephew are living here, you're going to have to keep them safer."

"To be fair, you bypassed most security checkpoints by being an Avenger, and not a skrull," Tony answered, taking a step forward. "Niece and nephew, huh?"

"Got a problem with that?"

He held his hands up in surrender. "Hey, no problem by me."

"Steve said the two of you..." Bucky made a weird, strained sort of noise. "He actually used the word 'mates'."

"Blame the kid," Tony answered. "He grew up in a tribal culture where that's pretty much the only word they use. Ian even considers 'dating' to just be a prelude to becoming mates."

"You and Steve, though?" He sounded almost pained.

"Hey, I'm a catch." Although Bucky was putting voice to the concerns that Tony had in his own head when he thought about him and Steve lasting any length of time.

"I almost believe you." He waited for a second, looking at Tony as though he was trying to look through him. "I know you'd do anything for him, that's... that's the problem. Maybe that's good, though. He needs that in his life, whether he wants it or not."

Tony knew that Steve did tend to get lost in his... perspective, not that Tony was any better.

"I know you probably don't remember," Bucky said, before pausing, and then continuing with whatever he wanted to say. "You saved my life."

"I still have the letter," Tony answered. Steve had written a letter, back when they had been fighting over Registration, and he'd asked - begged - Tony to help save Bucky, to give him something to live for and fight for, and Tony had done it, that much was obvious.

"So, I know you'd do pretty much anything for Steve, but I also know you'd do it your own way, not his..." Bucky trailed off. "Try not to hurt him."

"I never _try_ to hurt him."

"Try _not_ to hurt him," Bucky said again, this time rolling his eyes.

He'd try. "Wanna threaten my life a bit?"

Bucky didn't answer. Instead he prowled around the room for a few moments, hands against the desk, thinking something over. "Those kids-- Zola messed them up pretty badly, didn't he?"

Tony didn't know how much Bucky knew, although he doubted Steve had shied away from the truth. "Jet... she has a way to go. I don't even know her well enough to know everything Zola did to her. Ian... watched thousands of his clan mates get murdered before his eyes, he still wakes up screaming, and Zola messed with his brain enough that Ian shot his own father in the back and stabbed him through with a saw blade."

Bucky looked away, and took a deep breath. "You'll look after them?"

"General consensus is that I'd fuck that up pretty badly." And yet, Ian came to him, and Tony didn't think he flattered himself to think that it made Ian feel better. "I try."

"Well... I know where you live, Stark."

"Biggest and best building in the city," Tony shot back. "Look, Barnes, I... I'm doing the best I can, with all of them. I'm a fuck up, I know that, but I like to think I learn from the biggest ones." 

His own childhood, growing up, had been a textbook in what not to do with a child, and his experiences dealing with his captivity, with his youth, with his alcoholism, had all given him enough awareness to realize the worst of his mistakes, he hoped. 

"I love all of them," he continued. Even Jet, even after only a few days. Maybe he just had a soft spot for her story.

"They're pretty cute," Bucky admitted. "Mean punches, too. They move faster than Steve, and that's saying something."

"Ian's also pretty good with the shield." He was amazing, really.

"Well, if Steve ever wants to hang it up for good, I'm sure the kid would wear it well... better than me."

"He'd love to get to know you," Tony said. "Come around more."

Bucky thought it over for a moment, and then nodded. "Uncle Bucky."

Tony snorted, but his smile was genuine.

"I guess I have to, gotta keep an eye on you, Stark."

Bucky left him to it, finally, thankfully, and Tony got back to work, let half his attention on the kids, and their voyage to lunch, and then a few stops in a variety of stores that had him wondering if Ian was in the mood for shopping or if it was Jet.

"Busy?" Steve asked him from somewhere behind him.

Tony gave a little grunt. "Stalking your children around Manhattan, getting my manhood threatened by your best friend, you know, the usual."

"That doesn't sound usual at all." Steve came up behind him, and looped an arm around Tony's waist before nuzzling and kissing the crook of his neck. "Or... maybe it's become a bit usual."

"I'm uncomfortable with how usual I think this is becoming." Working, keeping half an eye on Ian, and now Jet, Steve interrupting his work just long enough to not quite be a distraction, but instead a pleasant diversion... "Is this you dragging me off to dinner?"

"The kids are still out," Steve said, obviously getting his own eyeful of the tracking display that Tony had up. "Bucky has, somehow, decided you might be good for me." He punctuated that with another kiss. "Am I going to have to do something drastic to get you upstairs with me?"

Tony wasn't sure he'd ever shut down his garage work faster. He and Steve kissed and groped at each other's clothes all the way up to Tony's floor, his room, and then Steve had him pressed hard against the door of the room. It didn't last, it never did. Tony knew Steve was still skittish about being aggressive with him, which was a damn shame, but he let it go.

Instead he captured Steve's face in his hands and brought him in for another kiss, wet and sloppy, needy... Tony loved it. He moaned into Steve's mouth as his hands went down Tony's sides to grab his ass.

"I'm sorry," Steve apologized, unnecessary, so unnecessary. 

Tony broke their kissing so he could look the man in his eyes, ran a thumb down his lip. "I love you."

Steve looked at him, shocked. Not exactly what Tony had hoped for, but... he wasn't going to leave that unsaid, not now.

"Unexpected, I see... well... I'm not going to take it back." Tony leaned in, and Steve leaned back, which... was even more unexpected, and Tony felt a creeping sense of dread, wondering if...

No, that didn't make sense, Steve wasn't with him for sex, wasn't with in this for a nanny and some sloppy makeouts.

"I love you," Steve answered. "I--" He laughed, and then leaned in to kiss Tony. "Sorry, you just caught me off guard. I didn't expect... It's been so long, I remembered you but... it's almost like I'm seeing you for the first time, too."

Steve kissed him again, backed him farther into the room, against the sofa, before he leaned in, leaned over Tony and started to kiss down his throat.

"First time, huh?" Tony asked, smirk on his lips.

"Don't be crude," Steve answered. He did reach down and start to ruck up his shirt. He slowly went to his knees, lips pressing against Tony's chest, carefully circling the repulsor node as he traveled down lower, planting a kiss on Tony's stomach, lower...

"Dad, me and Jet are... oops." Tony glanced up fast enough to see Ian's eyes wide, and Jet's eyes wider.

"Is your father attacking--?"

"Nope, nope..." Ian took Jet by the wrist and started to tug her away. "Mating things."

Tony started to laugh, Steve was chuckling at his thigh. "I'm sorry," Steve said, still laughing as well. It was a good sound, Steve laughing. It wasn't something that Tony had heard as often as he would have liked.

"He's your son," Tony answered, sliding down to pull him back up. "I don't think I can handle you son praying for our fruitful union, so... dinner..."

"Unions after?" Steve asked, smirking.

"God, yes."

Tony brushed a hand down Steve's hair, and then gave him a nudge on the chin to get him to stand. He could handle this, loving Steve, loving his children, doing his best to not fuck them up as badly as his father had him. Stuff he could provide, love... love he was working on, but he didn't think it would be as hard as he'd thought it could be, especially not with a mate like Steve, and a family like he brought with him.


End file.
